The Park
by ChloeCharles
Summary: "You held a certain fascination..." Set mid-1x13. AU. When Blair leaves the bar that night, she doesn't go home.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Is anyone still out there reading GG fanfiction? I sure hope so. I discovered the show ten years late (I KNOW) and I'm really excited to write about it. I hope you'll enjoy!

This story begins directly after the infamous scene in 1x13 and takes things in a completely different direction. Serious adult content and triggers of various kinds; reader beware.

Author's Notes:

The scene in the show with Chuck and Blair takes place at Butai, in Gramercy, which doesn't make sense to me geographically (also closed by the time of this writing). It also doesn't make sense for my storyline, so for purposes of this story, let's assume it took place at Bemelman's on East 76th.

Eleanor Waldorf is in NYC in the show during this episode, but for purposes of this story she's in Paris.

Chuck was born in 1990, not 1991, for this story, making him 17 going on 18 at this time; he is still a junior at St. Jude's, just a year older than his classmates, as part of his father's twisted Outliers philosophy. (Also, because I cannot see him as 16 in the beginning of the first season on several levels. Almost 18 is honestly still a stretch, but more reasonable to me.)

I'm sure other tweaks will come as we go, so stay tuned! 😊

Like every other author, I love, love, love reviews 😊 3

i.

She's not gone from her seat across from him for thirty seconds when he decides to go after her.

For one thing, he's still twitching – grooming gestures, adjusting his hair, clasping and unclasping his hands, tugging at his collar, like people do when they're lying or faking. Badly. He's lying, and though he can apparently make her believe it, he knows himself too well.

For another, he can't stop seeing her eyes. Their slow drifting up and down like the last brittle leaf letting go from the tree. He's never seen her so slow and shy. Never.

And it's not that he hasn't seen her vulnerable, in pain, even afraid. He's seen her naked in his arms, the arch of her back and curve of her head securely in his hands, her breath fluttering against his shoulders, murmuring, "I'm yours" while a streetlight flashes through the window of his limo and illuminates her shining eyes; he's seen her gulping back tears in that same limo on the way to school the morning her father's departure from their penthouse, their family, her, flooded across Page Six and paparazzi swarmed outside her building – "go out the service entrance, I'll wait at the curb," he'd told her, still surprised she'd answered his call after Nate said he couldn't get ahold of her; he's seen her calmly assuring Nate, her face pristine as a china doll's, that she's fine, just scraped her knuckles on the paper towel dispenser in the ladies' room, crunching hard on a mint, draining her water and reaching for Nate's – "do you mind?" – and always, those eyes flick to and fro, calculating like an abacus, the gears of some prototypical machine that has already guessed your next three moves and ushered you into a trap you failed to see, and in fact, were you to step back and look at it, that you helped her lay. You blink, you look down, and the center of the checkered board is somehow filled with her rooks and knights, and your King is brazenly exposed and hers for the taking. She'd be excellent at a chess board, he's thought more than once – or in a court room, or at a poker table.

He's never seen her gears struggle like they just have in front of him, grinding to a halt, baldly and ungracefully plodding along as he pours poison into them.

Poison that only he knows where to find.

 _Beautiful. Untouched._

 _I'm yours._

He throws cash on the bar, slides the half-full glass away. Reaches for his coat. He saw which way she went, because he watched her go. Of course. She didn't look back at him after the turn of her head when she finally went – still with a trace of halting confusion, like he just caught her across the jaw with his fist and she can't quite get her bearings – for the door. He fleetingly wishes she did.

ii.

The temperature has dropped since he got out of his limo and let Arthur off early for the night. Arthur warned him there was supposed to be freezing rain and a blizzard on the way and he should get home, but there are times when even the boy billionaire just wants to be alone. Untouched. Untouchable. He turns up his collar at the blast of cold air, wet with the impending storm, that assaults him as he rounds the corner. He tugs his gloves on. She went west, but she's nowhere to be seen. He pauses at the corner, looks both ways, and there she is – walking uptown. At first he thinks that she's probably going home, at a fast clip, but then she's crossing Madison, which is a one-way street, going north. She doesn't need to cross the street if she's hailing a cab. Maybe cabs are more easily procured on the west side of Madison? She'd know better than he; Arthur is procured with a nod of the head. She hesitates, drifts to a stop, lost, on the corner of 77th.

A full block away, she's a shadow, small and still. She raises a gloved hand as though to wave, or embrace, or surrender; it, too, founders. She turns in a half circle, looking around her. There's a long, slow exhalation that shows white in the air around her. He's rooted to his spot. He can see through her eyes at that moment, suddenly: alone, unwanted, abandoned. Not wanting to go home to nothing; not having anywhere else to go. _I have no one left to turn to but you._

Looking for anywhere to run.

 _And I can't see why anyone else would._

He takes a step to go after her. He can catch her. He can jolt her back to life. He doesn't have to drag her down with him.

"Hi, you."

He turns and finds his own mind shuffling, too preoccupied to properly grab a name, a coherent memory, from his deck. The girl in front of him speaks again, turning her card face-up for him.

"Do you remember me, by any chance? We met at your father's Labor Day party. Cadence Alexander. My mother's team at Skadden manages his deals."

By 'his,' she means Bart's. Her ready smile is a shot in his arm. "Forgive me- of course I do. It's great to see you again. I beg your pardon, but- "

He turns. Blair is gone. No hand in the air. He glances up and down his block, wondering if, maybe, she's seen him and is coming his way. But there's no sign of her, except perhaps the number of cabs humming up Madison toward 95th Street.

Cadence tips her head backward, then brings one gloved hand to her face. "Ugh- the rain is starting already. Do you have somewhere to be?"

He glances once again. No shadow anywhere. She's gone home, and he's not about to show up there uninvited at this hour, which would be risky under good circumstances, let alone what they are.

"No." He manages to turn up one side of his mouth, but he's aware it doesn't reach his eyes.

He'll wait outside her building tomorrow and ask for sixty seconds of her time. It took him less than that to knife her in the jugular just now; surely- surely he can find some way to take it back.

 _Rapidly blinking, she rears back. Breathless. Her eyes slide from one side of his face to the other._

" _He's never done this to you?" he asks, low, incredulous._

 _One bare temple – the hair is smoothed behind her ear, where he put it – ripples. She's clenching her jaw. She swallows. "Of course he has. Why wouldn't he?" her demand would be shrill if it weren't a whisper. "Do you think he doesn't think I'm beautiful or something?"_

 _A long beat passes. His heart is hammering in his ears. He could strangle Nate for being such an idiot. He palms her kneecap, trails his thumb up a few inches on her inner thigh, still wet from his tongue just moments ago. He doesn't know what Nate thinks of her, and doesn't care, because it's wrong._

 _She's half-reclined, propped on one arm, the other hand on his shoulder. He leans forward, besting her grasp with his own on her shoulder, propelling her upward, kissing her deep and long. Her eyes still dart about and he sees her nerves jumbling at a frantic pace behind them. He sidesteps Nate altogether. Kisses her again, like she's air and he can't breathe. She's panting when he lets up. "Can we see if I can do it better?" he asks, his palm on her kneecap swiveling, comforting._

 _It's too dim, but he could almost swear she blushes then. Certainly, she smiles, and means it._

 _Thirty seconds later, the arches of her feet are fitted around his ribs, her toes curling against his back, while he shows her that it doesn't matter what Nate thinks. That she is beyond beautiful._

The first cold raindrop splashes on his nose. Cadence is readjusting her scarf to cover her blonde hair. She's a real blonde – they don't make too many like this anymore.

"Want to grab a drink? I'm taking a break from studying before the weather gets too bad to dream of going out." She's an East Asian studies major at Columbia; she told him that over mint screwdrivers when they met.

 _When you were… beautiful._

"Sure." He checks his watch. 9:41 PM. The night is young. Nothing wrong with a bit of distraction, both female and alcoholic, to soothe him. "Pleiades?"

Cadence's eyes – blue, if he remembers – widen. "I love that place."

iii.

He knows he won't have a problem at Pleiades – Boulud and his father are old friends – but he takes pleasure in how much Cadence admires it. Her company is easy. She asks after Bart, politely; asks how his school year is going; is he thinking about where he wants to go to college yet?

"Do you think you'll follow in your father's footsteps? Be a legendary deal-maker?" Her eyes sparkle over her second cocktail, a hot one that comes served in an art deco teapot, clean lines and a chic fleur-de-lis as the handle to the matching teacup she sips from.

She's smarter than he originally assumed – smarter than most girls he knows. Both her parents are giants in their respective industries: her mother, a senior managing director at Skadden; her father, head of global something or other at Goldman. The Alexanders, he knows, are old money. Cadence has a legacy at Stern. A bright future ahead of her. Smarts, breeding, looks. Shining gold hair, shorter than shoulder-length with voluptuous curls at the ends rendering her closer to an old Hollywood leading lady than 21st-century college freshman, and a flawless red manicure. His father's hand on her elbow, eyes on his own, when he introduced them last September had communicated what a catch she would be. Well- 'catch' would be the way Bart would phrase it; 'conquest' would be his choice.

But as she smiles at him, tilting her head when she asks questions, she's just a girl, a nice girl, a good girl, and when her stockinged foot brushes his ankle for the second time, he finds that he doesn't want to do this.

Her phone vibrates. She wrinkles her nose and sighs. "Classes are cancelled for me tomorrow," she murmurs, drowsily, her voice velvety. "I guess I don't need to rush back to studying for that exam." She pours the last of her cocktail into her teacup. A ribbon of steam unfurls from it.

"You're free," he says drily, not without charm.

"Free." Her toes skim his calf now. "As a bird."

He takes a long sip.

"I have a great view of the park."

He wants to make some excuse. He hopes his phone will vibrate and jolt him before he does something he knows he should not do, because more than usual – much, much more than usual – he's doing it for the wrongest of wrong reasons. Anything. Nate with expletives. Serena with a scold. His father with a lecture. Blair with… anything. But he also doesn't want Cadence to go. He doesn't want to be alone now. Above all, he doesn't want to be alone until he goes to see her in the morning. He won't sleep. He can't get drunk. He has to keep his head straight until he can talk to Blair. He needs distraction. Someone who doesn't know how terrible he is, who doesn't hate him, who thinks – mistakenly – that he deserves something good. Warmth, a smile … a body near his, focusing its energy on him. A lifeline.

Cadence is beautiful. She's too good for him. And she's not the lifeline he wants. And he deserves to spend the evening alone, no warm body, if he has any honor at all.

 _Untouched._

But he's Chuck Bass.

"Is that so?" His eyes sparkle right back at her. It's not difficult to do, even after months of not needing to think about it – of it coming naturally. He might have unlearnt how to turn it on in the last few months, but apparently not. His glass is still in his hand, and he puts away the last mouthful.

"Don't believe me?" she teases.

"Oh, I believe you." He signals for the check; has cash ready. "I'm just not sure how much I care." She falters – he knows it without looking up from tucking the bills in the fold – but he's Chuck Bass and he's already there, a chess player, a litigator, with his poker face: "That's not the view I'm interested in."

Cadence throws the end of her scarf – luxurious, cashmere, blush-colored against her black velvet coat – over her shoulder, then smiles at him, tucking her gloved hand in the crook of the elbow he offers her.

iv.

She lives on Fifth, just a few blocks away, between 81st and 82nd. Her apartment is exactly what he would expect: timeless furniture, youthful touches like bright silk throw pillows and modern art.

"Another drink?" she offers.

He mock-scoffs. "I came for the view, remember?"

She laughs, a real laugh. She's fun. Light. She hangs up her coat and presses a button to raise the shade. One entire wall of her apartment is glass; floor to ceiling, at least ten feet of windows.

"Ugh!" she exclaims. The storm, which is now in its beginning stages, with freezing rain spilling onto the sidewalks below – to be followed overnight by six to nine inches of snow, if forecasts are to be believed – has settled in the air; the park looks like a meadow of dense, fibrous grey clouds interspersed with shrubs, which are actually the tops of trees.

Cadence shakes her head. Her expression is one of similar counterfeit frustration. "I never. Of all the nights."

"It's an outrage," he agrees, taking a step closer. She's in stockings, and just slightly shorter than he. "So. I was promised a view, and we've already had a drink." She twinkles up at him. "… Board games, then?"

A peal of laughter. He hasn't made anyone laugh like that in months. She approaches him; moves into his arms; kisses him full on the lips. It's she that comes to him. She wants him. She's warm and there and smiling. For him.

"Maybe," she whispers, a confident flirt, pulling back in his loose, tentative grip, "there's another view I can interest you in?"

He makes a show of sucking in breath, a hiss, shaking his head. "I must warn you, I'm very picky. As you know, my father owns half this island; I can safely say I've seen the best views there are."

"How can you be sure?" Cadence teases, unbuttoning her blouse. It's tucked into a wool skirt, warm and comfortable and classy. "You haven't seen them all."

"No," he breathes. He can't help but appreciate how comfortable she is in her own skin. No slip; narrow waist, delicate shoulders. It's not lost on him that with her hair curled up like that, he wouldn't even have to brush her hair to the side to see the nape of her neck if she turned around.

She's unzipping the side of her skirt, and in a moment it's around her feet. Her stockings are knee-highs; no garter. He reaches for her, and they're kissing again.

"More windows in the bedroom," she tells him breathlessly a minute later. "We could always check the view from in there."

He smiles, leaning in to kiss her neck.

His phone buzzes in his front pocket. He pauses; if it's a text or email, it will stop. But it picks up again: a phone call.

He doesn't hesitate.

"I'm sorry, excuse me for just one second."

"Sure." Cadence smiles, turns away and scoops up her discarded clothing, draping it over the back of a chair.

 _Serena_.

He stifles a sigh for Cadence's benefit. She's the last person he wants to talk to live right now; Nate or Blair would have him hitting 'Answer,' but Serena probably wants to lecture him for sending the tip earlier today, and that ranks squarely after the next hour or two with Cadence on his priority list. His need to not be alone, to not spend the next eight hours hating himself in solitude, outweighs his need to not sleep with someone – a smart, pretty, old-money heiress at that – just to validate his existence.

He declines the call and switches his phone off. In the moment before it shuts down, the time illuminates: 10:43 PM.

"Everything all right?" Cadence asks him with a smile, a respectful few feet away.

"And about to be even better," he murmurs, drawing her close suddenly and hoisting her off her feet. She chuckles in surprise. He's surprised at how much he enjoys playing the romantic – something he's never done and has had no interest in doing until a few months ago, yet it's not only something he can do now, but something he craves. He's been craving it for the last few weeks, and unable to give it to anyone, now he's going to give it to Cadence. Right place, right time, Cadence. "You mentioned a bedroom?"

"That way." She points. "Chuck Bass the romantic. Who knew?"

"Very few," he says honestly, "and I'd like to keep it that way, so mums the word." He kisses her, her arms slipping around his neck, all the way to the bed.

v.

When he wakes up, it's started snowing, and it's coming down heavy. Cadence is breathing deeply, fast asleep, satisfied, facing away from him with one hand on her pillow underneath her head. He glances at the clock on the bedside table. It's a few minutes past three.

Blair will still be warm in her bed, hopefully asleep and not awake like he is but if she is awake, then ideally plotting revenge or dreaming up things to level in his face when she sees him next. Not replaying his words over and over, like he is. Not believing them.

He shifts silently on the mattress. It's a great bed, actually. Expensive, firm foam mattress that doesn't bounce when one moves on or off it. Cadence doesn't even stir as he gets up. The snow is beautiful, heavy, romantic – if he had to guess, it's just turned from freezing rain to snow; there's still a weighty quality to the white dots. They're like small snowballs more than flakes. Beside the fog that's settled over Cadence's view of the park, he can see a firm white cover on Fifth Avenue below.

He dresses silently. He doesn't have her number; she doesn't have his. He's not in any condition to write her a note. He'll send flowers or something tomorrow, so he comes off as less terrible than he is. He leans over her, desperate not to wake her and have to explain why he can't stay – the nerves in his stomach are alive and jostling now, with a few hours until his Waldorf stakeout begins – and kisses her lips.

He finds his shoes by the door, slips into them silently, and closes her front door behind him as quietly as he can. He breathes a sigh of relief, shrugging into his coat. He powers up his phone in the elevator, forces himself not to look at it until he's out of the lobby, pausing to memorize the address so he can send those flowers – 1001 Fifth Avenue – and giving texts time to load, hoping against reason.

Nothing. Three more calls from Serena: 10:51, 11:07, 11:18. No voice messages.

He pockets the phone and slips on his gloves. The world outside is a wet, freezing mess. What looked like a snow globe from above looks from below like a swamp frozen over. He picks his way openly across Fifth – there are almost no cars, not to mention that he doesn't care about not jaywalking at the best of times – and walks under cover of trees on the edge of the park, where considerably less snow manages to reach the ground. The temperature has dipped low, at least ten degrees below freezing, and wind gusts knock him in the face, but he has no desire to try to find a cab. Several lumber past, surely empty.

There's nothing waiting for him at The Palace other than a cold bed and a mirror he doesn't want to look in.

He turns up his collar again. No, walking is good. The cold sobers him. It grounds him. The discomfort distracts him from replaying it in his mind – any of it –

" _What, you don't want me?"_

 _She tilts up to him, kissing him teasingly, knowing his bellowing breathing is conclusive evidence of the opposite._

 _His hand finds the back of her head, so when she breaks the kiss she can stop straining upward and literally put herself in his hands, and lowers it back to horizontal, following with his forehead, which grazes hers._

" _I just want to make sure you're sure," he whispers, his lips brushing hers at some of the syllables._

 _Her eyes close, a smile._

" _I told you I am."_

 _He's aching – it feels like it's going to kill him to stop – but he can't pretend this is meaningless or casual. She doesn't belong to him. She never has. Not in this way, anyway. He's a bit put off by his own hesitation._

 _Now she hesitates, too. – "Do you not want to?" she asks seriously. "It's okay if you don't."_

 _This snaps him back to reality. He looks at her, stunning, naked, wrapped in his jacket and lying on her back underneath him on the long, deep side seat of his limo, her legs parted and hooked around his own. Hair a wonderous mess from his hands. She's tipsy, but by no means too far gone to grasp what she's doing. And he knows, from the way she grabbed his shoulders with strangled insistence a few minutes ago, demanding he stop what he was doing to her because she didn't want to finish until- until- … that she's ready and eager for him._

 _He tells her the truth. "I want you more than I want to breathe."_

" _You're breathing," she retorts, sharp as ever. Her own breath comes in gasping little waves, hitting his shoulders and neck in a way that's not unarousing._

" _Take me."_

 _He wraps his other arm underneath her, palm flattening against the graceful curve of her back. There's still a question on his lips, and he almost asks it, and stops himself, and she sees._

 _And she can't be that drunk, because she knows._

 _And she wraps her arms around him right back. Nudging herself into his arms, as if to convince him before she says it. And then she says it:_

" _I'm yours."_

He's only made it five blocks, with twenty-five to go, when his resolution to walk to clear his head begins to crumble. His feet are soaked and freezing and he's considering hailing a cab. He could call the front desk and ask them to send a car, he thinks. He pulls out his phone, slowing to a halt under a dense pine tree that shields him from the snow, and looks around, weighing his options. A hot shower and time to organize his thoughts would be good before seeing her. Maybe he should bring her coffee. A peace offering. She'd probably throw it on him, so maybe not too hot.

 _I want you more than I want to breathe._

 _I don't want you anymore. And I can't see why anyone else would._

In the light of the lampposts, he sees only two solitary figures in all 360 degrees. One in a much more substantial coat than he, gender uncertain but probably a man, with a proper hat and scarf covering all exposed skin, trudging down the opposite side of Fifth; the other, a figure picking its way toward the park entrance on the footpath, almost definitely a female. He swipes at another notification that has come through, delayed: 1 New Voice Message.

He sighs. Serena.

 _Ignore._

He dials the front desk of The Palace. The roads are passable, he reasons. He'd tip well in cash, and no one would tell his father that his son was commandeering the on-call chauffer to venture out at 3 AM in a blizzard so he could have a comfortable ride home from God knows where.

A cab slides by. The figure on Fifth hurries into an apartment building a block down. He presses Send and turns idly, waiting for the front desk to pick up, to see that the figure in the park has turned the other way. Seems to be picking its way in the other direction now, toward the middle of the park or the west side. But there's no particular urgency in the person's gait.

"Palace Hotel. How may I help you?"

"Kathryn, is that you?" he asks warmly. Kathryn, the overnight manager, is probably around 40 and is like an aunt to him. He adores her.

"Chuck. Good evening. Do you need something sent up?" He can almost hear her eyeing the clock.

A particularly sharp gust of wind is at his back. "Actually, I'm uptown and I wondered if I could impose upon you to send someone up for me. I don't want to call Arthur, though he'd certainly get out of bed to come get me." While he speaks, he eyes the figure in the park again – it's no more than a dark shape, really, a shadow that he could even be imagining. But it's ambling toward a solitary lamppost, and in a few moments he'll be able to see it more clearly.

"We can send someone right up. Where are you, exactly?"

"Fifth and 76th. Right on the park border."

"You're outside?" she asks incredulously. "Can't you find somewhere to go where you're sheltered to wait?"

He closes his eyes a moment. Nowhere but his room, really, and an invitation he doesn't deserve from a girl who is certainly too good for him. Technically, there were two of those tonight; he handled the second one with slightly more honor.

"I'm made of strong stuff," he teases. "If you could send someone up whenever they're available-"

The figure is under the lamppost. The dark coat is not black as he would have guessed. It does look black in the shadows, but it's dark red. The figure raises its forearm, bending it up to do something in front of its chest – her chest – obviously female, his mind reasons – and the bell sleeve unveils itself, and he freezes. He knows that coat. He saw that coat a few hours ago. His nerves quiet to a hushed reverie.

"I can send someone up in a few minutes," Kathryn is saying. "I'm not sure how the roads are up there, but down here they're a bit slippery, so it might take a few-"

He's not listening. He looks lower, and realizes the figure isn't picking along, but stumbling along. Barefoot. The dark hair looks wet. The figure still has its hand up, out of his view, and he takes two unwilling steps closer, already knowing the direction he's going.

"Kathryn, I apologize, but let me call you back. Hold on the car." He ends the call.

vi.

The figure moves its arm, and the coat comes off. It's shrugged off, actually, with a bit of haste and what looks from afar to be annoyance. It's dropped unceremoniously on the ground.

It's completely clear now who he's looking at, even as he's sure he's dreaming. He must be. She's not here, of course. She's at home, warm in her bed, dry, safe, hating him – she got into a cab on Madison Avenue at 9:41 PM, almost six hours ago- in just a few hours, he'll be freshly showered, shaven, and at the curb of her building with Arthur, a latte in his hand for her, and flowers, and macarons, and diamonds, and anything to make this vision go away and turn into a reality where she went home to bed and is not here – not here – alone – outside – wet – barefoot –

He started after her several seconds ago, without realizing it. The park has less tree cover, and it's wetter, with more snow on the ground, than the pavement where he's just been walking.

"Blair?" He calls her name; she's at least 100 yards away, on the winding footpath, but he'll catch her in no time. Even if she hears him and breaks into a run. Which, oddly, he wants her to do. Anything but this wandering.

She doesn't seem to hear him. He tries again, louder: "Waldorf!"

Listlessly, with unsure feet, she trails off the footpath and into the snow-covered grass. Is she avoiding him? She must have heard him the second time. He doesn't want to scream at her – if she's drunk, or on drugs, who knows – but hot fear begins to flow in the spot where his nerves were zinging just a few minutes before.

What is she doing out here? Where is she going?

He's close now; two thirds of the way. He picks up his pace and snatches her coat from the spot where she dropped it. It's heavy. Soaked through. Parts of it feel stiff. He looks at her as he comes closer.

"Blair?"

Her white shirt – if they hadn't been where they were last night, he would have complimented her on the bowtie-like ribbon at her clavicle; something involving a musing on whether he could untie it with his teeth – is transparent. It's wet also. Stuck to her. He looks to her feet. Where are her shoes?

She changes directions again. It does seem she's trying to get away from him, but he doesn't care. He drapes her coat over his arm. Where is her headband? Her hair is clearly wet and unadorned.

He catches her. He can see at this range that her hair is not only wet, but stiff and sparkling in places. Partly frozen. With forceful fingers – he'll make her look at him – he touches her elbow.

She jerks it away. Turns the opposite direction.

"Blair." It's an imploration.

She makes a noise. It's a wince, straight from her throat. No voice. No words. Not even any bile for him. Is she hurt?

His blood rushes in his ears. He plants himself to her right and reaches out, grabbing her arm with both hands, forcing her to stop. She turns toward him, unwillingly.

His heart drops – misses a beat. He's never seen her like this. He's never seen anyone like this.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to all those who have reviewed, subscribed and favorited so far! I hope you'll continue to enjoy.**

 **One note – I realized I neglected to state the timeline for this story. The last chapter, with the scene at Bemelman's, took place on Thursday, January 10. We're now overnight onto January 11. Just in case anyone was wondering.**

 **Also, in case anyone is interested in listening to music to accompany chapters, I'll supply what I'm listening to when I write it when appropriate. For this chapter, I listened to Harry Escott (End Credits, Brandon, Unravelling) on repeat.**

 **Happy reading!**

The first thing he sees as she turns is a gash on the side of her face. It's doesn't look particularly deep, but it's wide and jagged, with dried blood on the edges. The cut is open and looks raw and vulnerable and ugly.

Her full lips are tinged blue.

Her lower lip is split, off to the left side, and this cut is deeper than the other. It's not bleeding, but there's a mess of dried blood over her chin and jaw, like it bled for a while before drying up. She looks like she got in a schoolyard fight and someone punched her in the mouth, except her lip isn't swollen – it's cut open.

The arm that he touches is cold as marble and wet. She's not shivering. She looks off to one side, eyes in the distance, unfocused.

"Blair," he breathes.

She registers nothing. He moves so he's in her line of sight. Now she's looking not at him, it seems, but straight through, to whatever is beyond his back.

He grasps her other arm, trying to rub it a little, a futile attempt to warm her. He's freezing himself, and he's dry. He wants to shake her. "What happened?"

She backs up as though offended. Yanks her arms away. She makes it two steps before stumbling – not over anything but her own feet – she doesn't fall, but she does yelp in surprise.

"Hey- Blair, stop," he goes after her again. "I think you need to see someone. A doctor. How long have you been out here?" It's obvious that she's not going to answer him, but he doesn't know what to do other than keep talking and hope she snaps at him or slaps him sharply across the face – something.

He tries to spin her around, but she twists away, somewhat violently, and again goes in another direction – this time, back the way she came, toward the footpath.

The snow is coming down around them, finer and fluffier now – the temperature is dropping. The scene would be charming, even soothing, under different circumstances.

She staggers to a stop and seems to be looking around, but her gaze is still blank. She presses her lips together, rolling them inward hard as though deep in concentration, and this seems to aggravate her split lip enough for it to bleed again. The fresh trickle of blood on top of the dried blood is the last straw. His coat is off in a second, and he drops it on her shoulders before she knows what he's doing. He reaches for her, and she pushes at him feebly, but she's no match for him in her best condition and he hauls her off her bare feet, negotiating her unwilling body into his arms. She struggles against him as he sets off for the footpath, whimpering a little as he shifts her into a more compact position, and he hopes he hasn't hurt her somehow. He looks down at her as they pass under a lamppost. She's looking upward, though not at him- maybe at the snow?- and he realizes her pupils are dilated. Vaguely he wonders if she could be hypothermic, but she's not shivering. It's not possible that she's been wandering around the park for the last several hours. Maybe she was at Serena's or something and they got drunk and she- what? Decided to stroll through the park alone at 3 AM? Fell and got a gash on her face and split her lip?

Where are her shoes?

Calming now that she's off her feet, she shifts against him, puts her head against his shoulder.

It's the worst possible moment for this, but there's a rush of fluttering in his stomach. She's put her head on his shoulder more than once before. He lowers his own head, cheek touching the tip of her icy nose, and tells her that he's going to get her help.

They're nearing the end of the footpath; the spot where he was standing when he first glimpsed her is within view. He's freezing and getting wet himself without his coat, but barely registers any sensation other than hot tension and anxious need to look at her every other second.

Mercifully, almost as soon as he stumbles onto view under a streetlight on Fifth, with her in his arms, a cab slows. The driver, a small man with dark hair and kind eyes and an accent he can't place, even jumps out in alarm: "Sir, what happen?"

"I'm not sure," he says. Blair is still and quiet in his arms, blinking slowly like a little girl fighting bedtime. She lifts her head at the exchange – maybe a good sign? – and then drops it, heavy as lead, back onto his shoulder.

The cab driver takes one look at the blood on Blair's face and her hair and looks back at the park. "In there?" he asks, as he opens the back door to the cab.

"She was- I'm not sure for how long," he tells him absently, side-stepping toward the car, tightening his grip on her. He lowers his head down sideways, covering hers, and eases her through the door, pulling her legs in closer so the cab driver can shut the door behind them. She winces again at this, and he looks down at her legs, wondering if she's twisted an ankle or bruised a knee that he's hurting. He glances at her legs – nothing seems to be out of sorts or bent at an odd angle – while he waits for the cab driver to get back into the car.

It's then that it hits him: yes, she's barefoot – freezing – toes a bit blue themselves, now he sees them under the light of the corner lamppost-

Where are her stockings?

Something dark curls in his chest. He frees the hand that was under her knees and uses it to tilt back her head and look closely at her face.

 _What happened to you?_

ii.

She's still bleeding a bit from her lip. He pulls his sweater over his thumb and dabs at it uselessly. He smooths back the hair from her temples and forehead.

Perhaps- perhaps, she took off her own stockings. He can't imagine why she would, but he can't imagine why she'd remove her coat either.

Her eyes actually seem to be looking at him now, but there's no recognition or focus in them. They still look distant and vacant. Still dilated.

"Sir?"

He looks up with a start. The cab driver is turned around fully. "Where?" It's clear that it's not the first time he has asked.

"Hospital," Chuck manages. "Lenox Hill."

The cab driver cringes a little. "I just came past Lenox Hill," he says, "and there was a multi-car accident on FDR. All the people were sent there. Ambulances everywhere. It is a mess."

He nods. "Mt. Sinai, then. As quickly as possible." It's closer to her home anyway. Surely she'll be fine and he can drop her off afterward. He fumbles in his wallet, pulls out a handful of bills, drops them over the seat. "Heat. All the way up."

The cab driver clicks the thermostat and the fan begins to blow hot air.

He resumes watching her. Only in the quiet of the cab, the stillness of having her this close, does he realize that her breathing is slow and ragged. He fumbles for her wrist and feels for her pulse, which also feels sluggish. His own heart picks up speed in response: maybe it's trying to even hers out.

She squeezes her eyes shut, almost a frown, and her head sways side to side a little. He rubs the back of her hand briskly, trying to warm it. The air around them is getting hotter by the second – the drive is much slower going than he'd like, but there are inches of snow on the ground, under which is a sheet of ice, and the last thing they need is to get into a car accident, so he bites down his impulse to throw more cash at the cab driver to step on it.

He picks up her hand and brings it to his mouth, blowing a hot puff of air into her palm.

" _It's freezing," she murmurs, the last time she has his coat wrapped around her._

" _I'll warm you up." He smiles against her lips._

" _Mmmmmmmm-" she hums, luxuriously, into his mouth. "Next time, warn me, and I'll wear thicker stockings-"_

 _He grabs the lapels of his own coat, drawing her in tighter. She's against a concrete wall, thank God for the plush lining of his coat, and he presses himself against her for body heat._

" _Consider this a standing warning, but wear whatever stockings you want. I'll make do."_

 _He presses his lips against hers, and although they're both still fully clothed, hikes her legs up around his waist and pins her to the wall._

" _Your hands are freezing," she complains, leaning forward, mouth to his neck. She tugs his scarf and collar aside and blows hot air down his shirt, once, twice, three times. The heat pours, thrillingly, over his chest and stomach. Into his ear: "It seems like I'm warming you up; not the other way around."_

" _Is that a challenge?"_

He turns her hand over and blows on the back of it. Once, twice, three times.

He reaches for her other hand, which is nestled in the depths of his coat, a different coat, against his own torso, but for good measure-

And stops.

Her hand is swollen in the middle. He thinks he's imagining it at first, but then holds it up against her left, which he's just been blowing on, and there's no mistaking it. The back of her right hand is significantly swollen. He swallows, hoping he hasn't injured it further by holding it against their bodies. Hesitantly, he bends his head to it anyway, and blows hot air on it gently.

The cab is bordering on stiflingly hot at this point, but he doesn't dare turn it down. He has to warm her up as quickly as he can. Tucking her hands back into his coat, he leans down with his free hand and briskly ribs at the tops of her feet, her ankles, shins, calves. It's been a long time since he touched her in any of these places, and he thinks soberly that he'd have traded ever doing so again if offered the choice to spare her this- whatever this is. Her lip, the gash, the swollen – broken? – hand sift fragmentedly through his mind. He's becoming less and less perplexed at what might have happened, and a blind fear is settling in his chest, tugging his heart along at a gallop. His own nerves at wanting to speak to her before school in the morning seem unbelievably trivial now, so much so that he shakes his head at himself as he finishes rubbing at her knees and his hand moves to warm the outside of her left leg, the one furthest from him. And stops again.

Her skirt has fallen up her legs a little, given her curled-up position across his lap, and a short space above her knees his hands brush across something rough. Yes- dried blood. A cut. More than one cut.

He glances up at her face. Eyes closed. Head lolling, blissfully unaware – well, maybe not blissfully – of the heart-stopping discoveries he's making.

He glances at the cab driver, who is focused on winding his way carefully through the rough-hewn streets of the Upper East Side.

He tugs her skirt up, just on that side, almost to her hip. Cranes forward. He can see several scratches – just the tips of them – and the one that he just pulled at, unaware of its existence, is freshly bleeding. He pulls his hand away and, yes, there's her blood on his fingers. He swipes his hand on his sweater.

What matters is that he can see the marks don't look random – she didn't scrape against a stick after tripping. They seem, to some extent, evenly spaced. He cranes, but can't see that side of her thigh; it's shrouded in darkness, and too far away for him to get a good, even fleeting, glimpse of.

He slides his hand back under her knees, grasps her shoulder where his other hand is holding her up, and tries to roll her toward his body a little- just enough to angle the side of her leg up – and stretches forward.

Her eyes jolt open. She whimpers, high-pitched and startling, and balls her left fist, her arm seizing up to brace against whatever pain he's just put her through. The cab driver glances in the rear-view mirror, then back to the road.

He puts her back the way she was, cursing himself to Hell and back. "I'm sorry," he tells her. "Are you okay?"

She melts – absolutely melts – against his shoulder. Dried blood is rubbing off of her torn cheek and onto his shoulder now that the heat is thawing her. Her eyes stay open, half-lidded, but she sighs, her vocal cords behind it. Relief. Discomfort. And she still doesn't recognize him.

They're only a third of the way to Mt. Sinai. He clenches his teeth and observes the roads, reluctantly concluding the driver is doing the best that could be asked of him under these conditions.

"Please tell me you're okay," he pleads with her, low enough that the driver won't hear them. "Please say something."

When he looks at her face again, she's blinking rapidly. He wonders if he hurt her leg enough to jolt her back to consciousness. Gingerly, he touches his fingers to her lower thigh to see if she's still bleeding. She is. Because of him. He closes his eyes.

 _Blair…_

Maybe he's being paranoid. Maybe she has cuts all over. Maybe she was climbing a fence. Maybe she did them to herself.

Not that that's better.

He looks down at the sides of her calves, but he knows the answer already from rubbing heat back into them. He can't see the other thigh, which is pressed against his body. He nudges her knees apart to see if there are any scrapes on her inner thighs, nothing at all sexual in the gesture.

She tenses, draws in a sharp breath through her nose. His head snaps back to her as she squeezes her knees together. Even so, her thighs don't touch; there's room for his hand if he wants to put it there; but he doesn't.

Her eyes are still vacant, but it's by far the quickest and most reflexive movement she's made since he first saw her – what – thirty minutes ago? Squeezing her legs together, body suddenly rigid, at the touch of a hand on her inner thigh. His hand, although she doesn't know that. He's had his hands, his mouth, in that very spot how many times? But he's a stranger to her right now, and even in her half-conscious, half-present mind, where she doesn't know him or herself or to keep her coat on or how to walk out of the park, she makes it clear that she understands a hand between her knees, and does not want it. More than does not want it: seizes and contracts, breathless and rigid, desperate to get away from it. The sound she made was fear. Distrust. Panic. _Don't._

He looks slowly over her legs. And then back at her face, bleeding from the lip, cut open on the cheek.

His head sinks toward his chest, five words splintering through his brain, even as he grits his teeth to keep them out:

 _Where_ _are_ _your stockings, Blair?_

His eyes fill with tears then.

He doesn't want to touch her intimately anymore – not to rub heat into her, not to make love to her – nothing. He wants to wrap her in layers and layers of thick fabric and put his arms around her and have her lay still and sleep and be at peace and know she's safe.

He swallows hard. This is not the moment to go to pieces.

"Can we go any faster?" he asks the cab driver softly.

"I try my best, sir- I am very sorry, the road is ice- "

"Not at all." Low, not to the driver: "Let's be safe."

iii.

Blair's eyes open, close, open. He holds her, looks at her, tells her things silently. _I didn't mean any of those things. You know that, right?_

 _Please wake up and be fine. You cut yourself shaving and tripped in the park. You're back together with Nate and went out celebrating. You're engaged to Baizen- anything. You're the ringleader of a drug kingpin. You got drunk and robbed a bank and…_

"Aidez-moi, s'il vous plait?"

He starts and stares down at her. She peers up at him, head now in the crook of his elbow.

"What?"

"Aidez-moi?" Her mouth dances over the words.

"Help you?" He's taken French since kindergarten. He doesn't speak it fluently like she does, but this is far better than nothing.

Her brow furrows like she doesn't understand him.

"Oui," he tells her. "Oui. Yes. I'll help you."

"Oui?"

 _Yes, God, just tell me what you need, what happened, anything._ "Comment puis-je aider?" _How can I help you?_

She stills. Beside himself, he gives her a shake, startling her.

"Qu'est-ce qui est arrive?" _What's happened?_

They hold each other's eyes for a long moment. Then gladness dawns in her eyes, which, he notes with pleasure, look more normal. Finally.

Relief floods him. "Blair-"

"Monsieur Petitdemange," she breathes in reply. "Tu m'as manqué." _I've missed you._

Before he can stop himself: "Qui?"

Her face relaxes. "Tu m'as tellement manqué."

"Non- non," he breathes, his free hand drifting up, hesitating, resting uselessly on her left shoulder. "Je suis Chuck." He takes his hand away, and then lays it again on the side of her head for emphasis. "Vous etes Blair."

Again, she frowns at him. "Monsieur?" A hint of a smile plays at her lips, like she's trying to work out what joke he's playing on her. She's blinking rapidly.

He swallows. _Okay._ "Oui, Blair," he murmurs, his tone warm.

"Ah. Devons-nous chanter?"

She waits expectantly. _Shall we sing?_

He clears his throat. "Oui. Apres vous." _Yes – after you._

Blinking, and apparently pleased, she licks her chapped lips – wincing absentmindedly when her tongue strikes the open wound – and, really, murmurs more than sings: "Alouette, gentille alouette."

She looks at him, waiting for him to join in. "Alouette, gentille alouette," he parrots. He doesn't know this song, but to be fair, he probably doesn't know any French nursery songs, other than Dansons la Capucine.

"Alouette, je te plumerie." She murmurs softly. Her blinking is still rapid, and she's beginning to sweat – which must be a good sign – glancing up, they're two thirds of the way to Mt. Sinai. The heat in the cab is beyond hellacious; he himself has certainly sweated through his shirt and is in the process of soaking his sweater. He wipes his face on his sleeve, avoiding the spots with her blood. He looks for her other hand to see if she's warmed up.

She gives him a somewhat impatient look, ignoring how he fumbles for her hand, which has long since relaxed from fisting up when he parted her knees. "Monsieur," she half-whine, half-scolds.

"Je suis desole." He looks at her, even as he lays his hand against hers, hoping she won't tense up. She doesn't. He turns her hand over and presses the front and then the back of his hand against it. She's warming up steadily. Relief floods part of his brain, while the rest holds onto various other emotions with a grip that won't loosen until she's standing on her own two feet, yelling at him in English for- anything. What he wouldn't give for her to call him a pig right now.

He moves his hand up to her wrist. She seems to be waiting patiently for him to sing along with her. "Une fois de plus?" _Once more?_

She gives a little sigh, an exaggerated, impatient Blair-sigh.

She's still in there somewhere.

"Oui, d'accord." She parts her lips, closes them, parts them again. He turns her hand over, feeling for her heartbeat, laying two fingers against her pulse point like they do in the movies. He frowns, waiting for the thumping and it doesn't come, but she's clearly-

He realizes it's beating fast. Very fast. Twice as fast as it was when he checked it before. And it's faint. He looks up; they're passing 92nd. Mt. Sinai is on 99th.

"Alouette, gentile alouette," she murmurs, perhaps lower than last time, or perhaps it's his imagination. "Alouette, je te plumerie."

He repeats her words, trying to gauge her heartbeat to see if it's slowing down, but it's consistently fast, skittish, like a frightened mouse.

"Je te plumerie le queue," she trips on, eyes drifting shut, "Et la queue, et les pattes…"

His hand has dropped her wrist and is fumbling in his pocket for his phone. He curses himself for not doing this sooner. As soon as he saw her.

"Et le ventre, et le ailes…"

Vocabulary lessons click through his mind. Flashcards before a quiz. These are body parts she's listing: tail, legs, belly, wings.

 _Plumer_. To pluck.

iv.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Hello," he rushes out, glancing at Blair, who is humming the notes to her song, but missing every third one or so. "My name is Chuck Bass. I'm in a cab with Blair Waldorf on our way to Mt. Sinai. We're about seven blocks away, but the roads are icy and it's slow going."

"How can I help you, Mr. Bass?"

"Miss Waldorf has been out in the winter storm for some time tonight – I don't know how long – I ran into her about a half hour ago" – he doesn't know where to start, what to say, how long he has before Blair – what? Loses consciousness? – "I think she'd been outside for a while. She was wet and she didn't have shoes on, and- " He breaks off. "Her heart is pounding. Really fast." The desperation oozes from his voice at last.

Blair chooses this moment to half-hum, half-say: "Et le dos, et le cou…"

And your back, and your neck.

He watches her face while he continues: "We're almost to the hospital, but I – her heart was beating slowly before, and now-"

"How quick would you say?"

"I don't know," he bites. "Too fast. It's not normal. But it- she was freezing cold and she…"

"It sounds like she might be going into shock in coming out of hypothermic conditions."

"No, she wasn't shivering, at all."

"In late-stage moderate to severe hypothermia, patients stop shivering. The body stops trying to warm itself through those muscle contractions. Did you observe any lack of coordination or mental confusion?"

"Et la tete, et les yeux," Blair breathes – he can barely understand her now.

An icy grip wraps slowly around his heart.

"Yes. She was…" he looks down at Blair. "She was taking off her coat when I first saw her. She didn't know who I was…" _She still doesn't_.

"This sounds to me like paradoxical undressing, Mr. Bass. Hypothermia patients often remove their own clothing as their temperature drops. It's a phenomenon that medical professionals don't fully understand."

The grip loosens a bit. The stockings. She took them off herself.

"Is she verbally responsive?"

"Sort of. She's speaking French."

"Is she French?"

He looks at her, looking drowsy or drunk on his forearm, remembering Blair the child, French children's books, frequent trips to Paris with one or both parents, and apparently, though he doesn't remember it- alouette, alouette. "It's not her first language, but she speaks it fluently. I'm doing my best to keep up. She's reciting what I think is a nursery rhyme or song."

"Verbal connection in any language is a good sign," the operator continues encouragingly. "How far are you from the emergency room? I'm alerting them of your impending arrival."

"Thank you," he breathes, "thank you- we're still six blocks out." Snow is falling in waves so thick he can hardly see the street signs.

"Mr. Bass, just a few precautions. Please keep Miss Waldorf as horizontal as possible, and no rough movements. In hypothermic patients, the body redirects blood away from the skin and toward the vital organs – heart, brain, lungs – and as a result, the skin in particular is next to defenseless. No vigorous friction- "

 _Oh, my God._

"I…" he gulps for air. "I tried to warm her up. I rubbed my hands on her skin."

The operator pauses for a few seconds.

"Please stop doing so immediately."

He closes his eyes. "Okay."

"If she's wearing any wet clothing, it will need to be removed, but since you're so close to the hospital I would advise you to wait for the professionals to do so to minimize risk. I also advise no other sources of direct heat until she can be evaluated. Her basal body temperature will be a strong factor in how she's treated if she is in fact hypothermic. Any intense direct heat on her body, below a certain body temperature, can have a strong negative impact on her vital organs."

 _Like blasting the heat in a confined vehicle for thirty minutes when she's hypothermic?_ He covers the receiver with his thumb. "Kill the heat. Roll down the windows."

Simultaneously, Blair murmurs, "Et le bec." _And the beak._

The cab driver complies and with a click and a buzz, cool air floods the cab. He can't bear to admit this second grievous failure on his part to the operator.

"Is there anything else?" He looks down at Blair, whose eyes are closed.

"Is her heart still beating the same way?"

He cradles his phone against his left shoulder, frees his right hand, finds her wrist again. "Maybe it's a little better," he conjectures. "It still feels too fast." He looks around. Snow is swirling in the open windows around them, landing everywhere – her hair, their clothes, his coat that she's wrapped in. He tucks her hand away. "We're four blocks out."

"I've been advised that emergency personnel is standing by waiting for you in the emergency bay." He hears typing, fast, frantic, completely at odds with the operator's late-night DJ intonation.

"Anything else I can do? Should we stay on the line?"

"If her heart feels the same, you can put the phone down and I'll hold the line until you've reached the hospital. Keep talking to her. Get her to engage with you by any means possible."

He glances down at her face. She's still. His heart lurches. "She's not talking."

"Put the phone down, Mr. Bass, and talk to her."

The cab is crawling. It looks like uptown got more snow than downtown. Snow twirls in, dancing like ballerinas, cooling his overheated skin. Blair doesn't look flushed. He should have noticed that. It should have alarmed him.

He puts his other hand near her head, but doesn't know what to do with it. He touches her nose, awkwardly. "Blair." Her eyes have been closed for some time, but now she's not murmuring song lyrics about body parts any longer. It finally clicks in his mind, inconvenient and irrelevant, that alouette means lark.

He's too nervous to touch her anywhere else. He's done enough damage.

"Un, deux, trois." He holds up fingers, though she doesn't open her eyes. The beat of his own words provides him a small measure of comfort, so he repeats it. "Un, deux, trois."

Two and a half blocks. They're at a red light. They've just passed her street. He'd trade his own life, at this moment, for her to have spent the night warm and safe at home in her bed. He'd trade it now if he could go back and erase this.

"Un, deux, trois. Quatre, cinq, six."

The light turns green, and they creep through the intersection.

He repeats, showing his fingers all the way up to five, but he has only one hand. "Quatre, cinq, six."

He's watching the light at the next intersection, willing it to turn green, when her voice floats up to him.

"Six."

v.

He looks down. "Six." He holds up one hand, five fingers.

She lifts her hand – not arm, just hand – with her index finger pointed up. Five plus one. Six.

He starts over again as they roll to a stop. "Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six." He counts slowly, ticking off on his fingers.

Slowly, with concentrated effort, she raises her thumb also. "Sept" – middle finger; he counts along with her – "huit" – ring finger "neuf."

Green light.

Her pinky comes up last. "Dix."

She almost smiles; it reaches her eyes more than her mouth. They look at each other – his eyes alert and watchful, hers slower but, if he's not dreaming, clear now? – ten fingers in the air, and he moves his open palm forward, wanting to press it against hers, to touch her fingertips and clasp her hand in his palm. But he doesn't.

He touches two fingers to her pulse point, and frowns. Her heartbeat is still too fast.

"Chuck."

He jolts, goosebumps blooming on arms and chest in an instant, and then regrets it, remembering he's not supposed to jar her. "Yes?" is all he can manage.

"I'm okay?" she blinks slowly. It could be a question or a statement.

He doesn't miss a beat, like there's no question at all. "You will be. We're getting you help right now." She opens her mouth, eyes narrowing as she tries to process this, and he rushes ahead before she can ask him something he can't answer: "Are you in pain at all? Does anything hurt you?"

"I c… I don't know." She just watches him. "I don't think so."

In shock. Like the operator said. His fault. Thank God he called when he did.

"We're going to make sure everything is good," he soothes, hoping someone can fill her with painkillers before the adrenaline or shock or whatever it is wears off and she can feel the cuts and bleeding and swollen hand. "Then you can go home."

Last intersection before the hospital.

"But am I hurt?" She seems more interested now, trying to raise her head from his arm.

He cradles her more, helping her raise her head. "You're perfectly all right," he lies, pretending she's a child he needs to shield from the truth, and he's always been good with children. Perhaps because he is one. "Just a quick check-over, and then straight home." He's fully aware he's making promises he doesn't remotely think will come true.

Green light.

She tilts her head back again, exposing her graceful pale neck. His hand, forgotten against her now-limp wrist, tentatively clasps her fingertips. She turns her hand over and lets him slide his palm back against hers.

She doesn't move; addresses the ceiling of the cab. "Is it snowing?" she says suddenly. "I thought it wasn't start supposed to start until the middle of the night."

She has no idea what time it is; how long she was out there; this means that she didn't just vacantly wander into the park shortly before he found her.

They pull carefully into the emergency bay, rolling to a halt under the overhang as a team of quick-moving people in scrubs rush out from the warm, dry safety of the hospital and approach their door.

Only as the cab stops moving does it occur to Blair to tip her head toward his shoulder, with a deep breath that she struggles a bit to take, and look up and ask: "Why don't I feel cold?"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm so delighted with the kind words and encouragement I've gotten so far! Thank you all for your time and energy spent reading and reviewing. I really appreciate each of you, and I hope you'll enjoy our next installment.**

He turns away from the window of the room where they've taken her, conscious at last but confused and, it seems, unaware of her physical injuries. They're cutting her out of her clothing now, though he's certain she'd be able to get it off herself if they helped her sit up. Her hair, thawed and wet, is dripping over the rolling hospital bed they placed her on when they took her away from him, lifting her head carefully from his bent elbow, saving him from having to answer her question about why she couldn't feel how cold she was.

He stumbled out of the cab to follow her, digging out more cash from his wallet and handing it to the cab driver, thanking him, the snow swirling around him as he told the operator they'd made it, collecting her coat and tucking it under his arm.

They were rolling her quickly inside, leaving him to follow in his own time, and he watched as Blair raised her head a little, briefly – looking for him? – before sinking back down. A nurse, short of stature and plump with the face of an angel, stepped back from Blair's side to move toward her feet and grasp the end of the rolling bed, steering it through the double doors, and that's when he saw it. Her skirt, still nudged most of the way up her thigh; her leg lolling a little, bent at the knee, bare heel anchoring her foot as it swayed toward the other, where it eventually came to rest – he saw what the scratches were. He breathed in and out for a moment, that dark feeling in his chest sharpening.

The cab driver saw, too. "What happen to her?" he murmured, accented, as much at Chuck as not. The question was covered by the rapid, almost mechanical exchanges of the medical staff that surrounded her, approaching another who waited just inside the doors, reaching a hand out to grasp the base of the bed near Blair's head.

"Pupils are round, equal and reactive."

"Core body temperature reading…"

"We're set up for extracorporeal warming."

"Miss, can you tell me your name?"

"Prepped for gastric, thoracic and cardiopulmonary lavage."

"She's going to three. The heart-lung machine is prepped-"

"Miss- your name, please?"

He focuses on her upper half as he watches through the glass, laced with wire mesh in an infinite pattern of tiny hexagons- bulletproof, he wonders? The nurse and physician have both seen her leg now, he's sure. They're using a pair of gleaming, sharp-looking shears to strip her bare, hooked under the hem of her white blouse, skimming upward without needing to clamp down at all – the fabric falls away. A steady hand is on her shoulder. The nurse looks to be comforting her, saying soothing words, while Blair's head twitches to and fro. She's not grasping what's happening, why she's here, and certainly the cutting off of a designer blouse isn't lost on her. Down to her bra – stunning, actually, a pale green longline, silk, with vertical stripes in slightly lighter and slightly darker shades.

 _He's seen it before, in a different life, running his fingers across the exceptionally difficult to unhook clasps, wanting to pull it off in the same motion as the dress whose zipper he's just opened down to its root at her waist. Brushing down over the base of her neck, bare because her curls are piled on the top of her head- which she must have done just before he arrived, because they were down all day at school- and over her vertebrae, not minding the delay in getting the garment off._

In the end, the hooks were no match for him, of course, and they'll be no match for the shears.

He steps back, as though afraid, while the nurse smooths back Blair's wet hair, places a hand on her hairline, smiles at her – the orderly who is handling the shears reaches for Blair's torso, her blouse now useless and open in the front, ready to be peeled off – together in one movement with her bra, he realizes not without mirth – and hooks one finger underneath the bottom of the green silk, stretching it away from her skin so he can get the shears between them.

The blade must touch her, for she squirms then, back arching, and he hears her voice spike in protest. She's focusing her displeasure on the nurse whose attempts to soothe her suddenly run off their tracks. "Stop!" Blair yelps, clearer this time, her abdomen tightening with the exhalation. He steps forward; his fingertips come up, unbidden, to rest on the glass. They press hard as her voice reaches his ears again, an indistinguishable plea. Are they hurting her?

The nurse looks down at where Blair's midsection has curved forcefully off the table and her face jolts up to look at the physician, who is standing on Blair's other side. Blair sinks back down, her blouse falling underneath her now in tatters, and he sees, not a foot above what's scratched onto her thigh, a mottled red mark the size of his full hand, fingers splayed out, curled around her side. The rest of her is pale, almost white, a shade or two lighter than usual from cold, and the mark stands out like a bloodstain on virginal white bed sheets. Proof.

He tears his eyes from her waist – that's off limits now, too – and looks back at her face to see her eyes skittish with tears. Her mouth is moving rapidly, but he doesn't think she's speaking. The nurse turns on her fullest bedside manner, stroking Blair's hair, explaining to her what's happening, he's sure. The shears come back, tip stealing underneath pale green silk, as Blair squeezes her eyes shut, nodding. He shuts his eyes as the shears clamp over the layers of expensive fabric. He doesn't want to see anything else, as much because he's afraid he'll be sick looking at the body he's been dreaming about seeing again for a month as because he's afraid he'll see more injuries. As it is, he has enough material for a lifetime of nightmares.

Fingers still pressed against the glass, eyes closed, he turns his head to the side, swallows, shakes his head and bites hard on the inside of his lip, then the tip of his tongue. All in vain. He can't forget, not even for a moment. Can't stop seeing her leg, the knowledge of what his fingers brushed over in the cab but could not understand relentless in his mind.

He drags his fingers from the glass with effort and walks away.

ii.

The waiting room is empty, which would surprise him, given the storm and the state of the roads outside – not to mention the apparent multi-car pile-up on the FDR that the late-night news anchor is chirping on about – if he were in a state of mind to process surprise. He sits in a corner chair, expressionless, her coat in a wet ball against his stomach. He's still damp from sweating in the cab. He's uncomfortable, chilled, and he doesn't care. He doesn't even feel it.

His shoes are carefully aligned on the floor beneath him, knees bent with perfect perpendicularity, back straight. Jaw slack. The pads of his fingers, folded into her coat, are the only part of him that feel alive. The textured wool caresses his fingertips as he moves them, imperceptibly, a millimeter this way and that.

"Sir?"

It's the nurse.

His eyes flick to her. His fingertips still. Her face is as unreadable as his.

His mind spins into a frenzy. He's certain, certain, that she's going to tell him then that Blair has died. She had internal bleeding; he harmed her vital organs with all that friction and hot air in the cab; she was in delicate shape, fragile- _beautiful_ , _delicate_ , _untouched_ shape- and he ruined her, single-handedly ruined her, in quite spectacular fashion, and she suffered horribly, struggled to stay afloat – but couldn't – and he- he's a monster for putting her through that; he might as well have just put a knife into her jugular- again-

"She's asking if you're still here."

If?

Does she not want him to be?

"Would you like to see her?"

He nods, throat dry, and then finds he needs to brace his hand on the armrest to get to his feet. "Is she…"

"She's stable." She pauses. "Are you family?" He blinks, taken aback. "Boyfriend?" she tries again.

Hands buried inside her wool coat, he strokes the soft, nubby texture. _I can't see why anyone else would._

"Friend." He swallows. "We go to school together. Is there… is there anything you can tell me?"

"She's hypothermic," the nurse confirms, repeating back to him what he frantically suggested when the cab door was wrenched open and this sweet face appeared, blank yet concerned all at once, hands coming to cradle Blair's head and guide her to the gurney. "Her temperature when she arrived here was 86.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which is, as you know, very low. That's moderate, tending toward severe, hypothermia. She's lucky to not have sustained any serious tissue damage or frostbite. We were able to avoid invasive warming methods – washing her major organs with warm fluids, for example – which are effective but physically traumatic and require putting the patient under general anesthesia for some hours – and we're bringing her back up slowly to a normal temperature. She's periodically inhaling warm, humidified air through an oxygen mask to rewarm her chest cavity. You'll see an IV in her arm, which is a heated saline drip to help warm her from the inside out. She's wrapped in medical electric blankets."

His heartbeat slows, goosebumps pricking up on his arms, at the calmness with which she's telling him all that's being done to keep Blair's head above water, all that's had to be done just to save her from loss of life or limb. Can this be real? Six hours ago, however long- she was fine. Now – moderate tending toward severe hypothermia?

"Her heart was pounding in the cab." He again can't bring himself to say that that was largely his fault.

"Recovery from hypothermia is a fragile time." Her voice and face are kind. "Particularly when the core body temperature has dropped that low. Many things could have set that off. Her pulse rate was elevated when she arrived, but her respiratory rate and blood pressure were normal to a bit lower than normal. She stabilized quickly once we got her saline started and got her into a controlled environment. Her life is not in any danger."

He exhales. "Is she in pain?"

The nurse hesitates. "She's largely numb. She may have other injuries. We're going to give her body time to adjust and reach a slightly higher temperature, at least another thirty minutes, and then examine her more fully."

"What about her … cuts?"

She blinks back at him. "We'd like to wait until she's in better shape to evaluate where she'll need stitches."

It's not his place to point out what's carved into Blair's leg. Nor ask if they know how it got there. Which they almost certainly don't, and very certainly have not asked her.

After a long, charged silence, the nurse comments as if she's giving him the time of day: "Hypothermia patients often experience some memory loss. It's best to wait for her to come round on her own."

"I understand." And he does. Though he wishes he didn't. "Is there anything I can do for her?" he asks. He'd love to be assigned some herculean task. There's nothing he won't do for her right now.

She gives him a soft smile, a sympathetic smile. "She asked if the young man who brought her in had left, and when I said I wasn't sure, she asked me to see if you were still here. I think she just wants to see a familiar face."

On the way back to her room, he tells the nurse: "She's a minor. Her parents are both in France."

"Can you get in touch with them, please?" she asks. He nods. It's a lie. He doesn't have Harold's number or Eleanor's.

Not that he'd have the words to tell them what's happened to their daughter. He can't even grasp it himself. Let them live as many more moments as they can without knowing – the longer the better; he knows firsthand. It's a problem to be dealt with later.

She's been tucked away in a room on the opposite side of the floor from the triage desk and waiting room. She's sitting up, propped with pillows up to her shoulders, hair wet and pulled to one side, draped over her shoulder. As promised, she's wrapped in blankets, standard-issue hospital blue. She's holding a paper cup in her left hand, a yellow straw stuck in the side of her mouth that isn't cut – they've cleaned off the blood – lips closed firmly around it, the liquid inside coming in short sips that are obvious from the darkening and lightening of the straw.

He stands in the doorway, still holding her coat. It's become an extension of his body in the last hour. He sees his own coat, stripped out from its previous place underneath her, hanging on a hook at the rear of the room.

She tracks him with her eyes, and for a terrible moment he's sure she's about to tell him to leave.

She places the paper cup down on a rolling table next to her bedside, opposite side of the bed from where the door and he are. She swallows and then beckons him in, raising her right hand – swollen, now purple, in the middle – and swiping unsteadily toward her, a motion that looks abbreviated, shorter than she intended it to be. He shuts the door behind him.

As he approaches, he sees that she's flushed and sweating. The gash on her cheek has also been cleaned, and even without the blood it looks as ugly and jagged as it did when she first turned toward him – when he turned her toward him – in the park. He struggles for an opening line, sifting through and rejecting numerous quips; expressions of worry; questions.

"Hi," he finally says, when he's standing at her bedside.

She's trembling.

Their eyes hold each other for an excruciatingly long ten seconds. Her blinks are inconsistently timed, sometimes fluttery, sometimes languid.

"I thought you left." The words are raspy, like she has a sore throat.

His lips part. He closes them. Shakes his head. Left? He's a heartbeat away from needing to be hospitalized himself. She swallows, with what looks like difficulty. She reaches for the paper cup again.

"It's snowing," she offers at last.

"Does your throat hurt?" he asks. She nods- yes- and takes a long sip of whatever's steaming up from the paper cup. "You don't have to… "

She lowers her eyes. "The doctor said until my body temperature comes back to normal, I'm going to shiver all over."

It's almost five in the morning. She should still be sleeping – another hour, at least. Wrapped in non-electric blankets, not shivering, hair dry and brushed and spread on her pillows. He should be in the shower in his room at The Palace, deciding what to wear, keeping a weary eye on his reflection in the fog-addled mirror.

"School's cancelled," he tells her, as idly as she commented on the weather. Not that it matters. She wouldn't be able to go.

"My temperature was 86.5." She doesn't seem to have heard what he just said. Her skin is more flushed now than it was even a few minutes ago. "A degree or so lower, and I wouldn't have been able to walk. And-" she swallows against a dry throat. "I'm no biologist, but I'm guessing with the weather the way it is, it wouldn't have taken long out there for it to drop another degree."

He should have chased her sooner. He should have called her at 9:42 PM, making sure she got into one of those cabs on Madison Avenue and was hurtling uptown, catching her probably around 80th, on her way to the safety of her penthouse and not wandering off into the unknown. Even if she wouldn't give him 60 seconds to try to undo what he'd just done, he shouldn't have been content to wait nine hours to see her. He should have gone after her, focused on making things right with her instead of focusing on what he always focuses on: the nearest thing, the quickest fix he can find to tamp down his own vulnerability, whether diluting it in Scotch or slipping it between someone's thighs.

His fingers find a strip of velvet – the black accent lines on the front of her coat – and, invisible to the world, trace it up and down, an inch, half an inch, back and forth.

Her eyes slide back to his; her voice drops to a whisper. "At 82 degrees, a person of my height and weight goes into heart failure."

He swallows thickly. "Blair-"

Like he hasn't spoken: "If you'd left me there, I would have died."

Alarm suddenly erupts in him when he sees her indifferent expression. Does she think it's possible he would have left her there? He wants to reach for her, but he finds himself too afraid to touch her; blooms of bruises, flesh like blushing tissue paper tearing under even his most gentle touch, dance in his mind; who knows what other injuries she might have. The thought of possibly hurting her again, more, is unbearable. He instead puts his hand on the railing to her bed, which is drawn up like a skeletal armrest on a sterile chaise lounge.

"I would never have left you there." _I'd trade places with you in a nanosecond,_ he adds silently. Him there, bloody, in the bed, shaking with what are apparently reverse chills, while she stands idly by telling him he doesn't have to worry about missing school. Of course, she wouldn't be hanging around waiting for him and watching him drink whatever that was. He'd be alone. She'd leave him, and rightfully so. And if not- he'd tell her to go.

Her eyes brim with emotion, and he thinks she's about to offer him a thank-you, an expression of gratitude that is as unnecessary as it is undeserved, and instead she looks off into the distance, puts the straw back between her chapped, pale lips – not bluish anymore, he notes – and says softly around it, "I might have."

She takes a sip.

His brow wrinkles. She might have left him there, or left herself there? "What-"

The door opens behind him. The nurse, on her rounds – Annemarie, she introduces herself – checks the machines connected to Blair, double-checks her saline, adjusts the heat setting on her blankets. He moves to the other side of her bed, where there's a chair against the wall, and watches Blair's face as she tips it up to have her pupils examined, her temples and jawline gently pressed. Annemarie whisks up Blair's near-empty paper cup, leaving a full one in its place. "Drink up, my dear," she soothes to Blair. "All the hot, sugary cocoa you can stomach for the next few hours." She offers to bring something for Chuck, but he assumes Mt. Sinai doesn't serve single-malt Scotch to visitors, so he declines politely.

"Can I call anyone for you?" he asks Blair as soon as they're alone again.

"No," she replies. "I don't want to worry anyone for nothing."

What she means is, I don't want anyone to know that the fallen Blair Waldorf, 24-hours-ago queen, is now almost literally torn to shreds, lying in the hospital shaking and recently half-dead.

"In case anyone asks," he says, low, "I told the nurse I would get in touch with your parents." She nods, but he can't let it go. "What about Serena?"

"No." Her hand is shaking; she frowns and places her cocoa down on the table next to his chair.

"Dorota?"

She shakes her head. "I can't call Dorota until I'm cleaned up." She looks down at her right hand where it rests on her lap, not bundled in her warming blanket. "She'd die if she saw me like this."

He looks down too, at the floor, trying not to selfishly think that he's not exactly not dying himself.

Her next words creep toward him like a shy child, her voice hushed as well as raspy now: "She's known me since I was little."

 _I've known you since you were little._

He almost says it. Instead, he says, "okay," and stands up, picking up her cocoa, putting the straw in front of her and sliding it between her lips when she parts them. She's shivering deeply, the blush on her neck and cheeks deepening in what the nurse will later explain to him as a combination of blood rushing back to her skin and the delayed-onset appearance of chapping and windburn from several hours of exposure.

Because he will soon find out what he already knows, lurking in an adjacent corridor of his conscious for the past hour: that she's been outside almost the entire night, since he last saw her at 9:41 PM on Madison Avenue, when he turned away from her toward Cadence, his drug for the night. The drug he chose instead of going after a girl he's known since they were both little.

This is all beating in the background of his mind, but he's Chuck Bass and he chooses distraction for now, while he still can.

He reaches out and steadies her head above her trembling shoulders, palm moving a little, gently, like it did on her knee that first night, and helps her drink her cocoa.

Taking a break, she looks up at him. "Do you need to go?"

"No," he tells her. He blinks twice, realizing it might have been a suggestion, and draws a breath, faltering. "Unless you want me to?"

Her uncombed hair is drying at the temples, teasing up into soft half-curls. Whatever makeup she was wearing last night is gone. Flushed from hairline to neck, she blinks rapidly at him. "I…" she shakes her head and gulps, deeply uncomfortable with the vulnerability of her position and what she's about to say. "I don't want to be alone here."

Even Chuck Bass is preferable to no one, apparently.

He nods.

"Please," she adds, almost under her breath.

"I'll stay as long as you want." He offers her the cocoa again.

iii.

Annemarie is in and out every fifteen minutes or so, but her visits feel closer together. Blair alternates between sipping cocoa and breathing humidified air through an oval mask that Annemarie slips around her head. She complains that her side hurts.

"Once your temperature's up another degree," Annemarie tells her, surveying the core temperature thermometer she's just removed again from Blair's ear, "we'll examine you more fully. Probably twenty minutes or so."

"Can I shower?" Blair asks. "Would that help?"

The nurse's lips tighten, just momentarily. Blair doesn't see. "Not yet, dear."

"I feel hot," she whines a few minutes later, air mask removed from her face, when they're alone again. He's sitting by her bedside, half-empty cocoa next to him. She touches her face with her non-swollen hand. "My skin feels hot." She looks at him. "And achy. I wonder if I have a fever now."

"It's muscle soreness from shivering," he reminds her evenly, relieved that she's complaining. Annemarie told her that not five minutes before.

She frowns, suddenly interested, when she catches sight of the back of her lower arm, which is flushed rosy pink, like the rest of her exposed skin. Her neck and face are actually worse, though mercifully she can't see them. She kicks her left foot out of the medical blanket. "It's so red," she mumbles, defeated.

"You're supposed to stay in the blankets." Now his tone is lecturing. "If your temperature doesn't come up, they won't do the examination and you can't go home until they do. Just stick it out for another fifteen minutes."

More lies.

He knows she's not getting out of here yet.

She sighs, leaning back against the now partly-reclined headrest of her bed, and nudges with her toes to bury her foot back under the blankets.

But she's clumsy and half-numb and shaking, and all she manages to do is knock the blanket over her knee, where it was hanging on by a corner anyway – he has the thought momentarily, just before it happens, to stand up and grab the edge and lay it the rest of the way across her – and in so doing, exposes her left leg, where the white-with-blue-paisley hospital gown has pooled above her knee from all her squirming the last few minutes.

And there it is. Staring him in the face.

And she sees it, too.

"Wh…" She blinks a few times in rapid succession, focusing her gaze down at it. She can only see the tops of the marks from where she reclines. She tugs the hospital gown up further, unconcerned with baring more of her leg to him, and in so doing reveals the entirety of what's there.

He's silent.

"What is that?" She looks at him; cranes her neck. He can't look away from her leg.

"Chuck?"

He tears his eyes from it and looks at her.

"What is that?"

He blinks back at her. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, and instead he inhales softly, blankly. A reflex.

He manages to keep the cringe from his face, but staring blankly does nothing to put her off.

She gives him a confused, exasperated glare and grasps with her good hand at the railing, trying to haul herself up, trying to twist her leg inward to see what the scrapes are – and winces, loud and breathless. She squeezes her eyes shut and lowers, carefully, back to the angle of the bed. Sucks in breath.

"My side," she mutters, "really hurts."

He watches her face contort in pain.

"I wonder if I broke something."

He presses his back molars together. Judging from the blood-like splotch covering half her rib cage that he saw an hour, two hours, ago, when she was whimpering on the gurney, it seems like a definite possibility.

"Bass," she bites, setting her face with effort to neutral.

He meets her eyes like a guilty child.

"What is that on-" a stifled gasp; her temple belies the clenching of her jaw- "my leg?"

"Scratches," he manages, at a whisper.

She holds his gaze. "Does it say something?"

He doesn't have the wherewithal to hide the deeper breaths he suddenly finds he needs.

"No." There's a hint of defiance in his voice.

Her reddened cheeks plump; there's a sadness in the way her eyes slant at the corners in a soft smile. "You're a much better liar than this."

Suddenly wishing for her coat to hide behind, he laces his fingertips together.

"I'll get down and go look in the mirror, then," she bluffs, the same half-defiant note creeping in. A hollow threat. Even were she not tethered to a handful of machines.

She's looking a little desperate now, and as unable to hide it as he is.

"Come on…"

"No." He shakes his head. He remembers the first moment he thought- maybe, just- the way she clenched her knees together.

 _Where are your stockings, Blair?_

No _._

Taking a deep breath, she starts to sit up again, trying to slowly twist, a light, girlish groan contained in her throat, behind her clenched jaw.

The noise is too much. The only thing he can put above his unwillingness to say it is watching her suffer.

He unclasps his hands and puts up a palm to stop her.

She eases herself back, breathless from discomfort and mounting anxiety, staring at him, one long exhalation of relief.

He swallows, opens his mouth- closes it, swallows again.

She waits.

"It says…" he can't bear to look at her. He looks straight ahead. At it.

His heart drowns out the sound of his own voice in his ears.

He closes his eyes.

"Whore."

The beating of his heart doesn't slow after it's out of his mouth.

Then she's quiet for a long time.

He finally looks up at her, and her face is blank, slack, soft-lined, with lips paler than her cheeks. She licks them, with effort. "Oh."

He's wondering if he should respond, if he should stay quiet, if-

She clears her throat, still dry. Opens her lips, but they're still, parted, for another quiet moment.

"Right."

She looks at him, blinking her gaze to and through and around him for what's no more than thirty seconds but feels like a decade, and finally he says, "Do you want some more cocoa?"

She nods wordlessly, and he gets up to hold it for her, draping the loose edge of the blanket back over both legs without looking as he rises to his feet.

iv.

Annemarie is away for a long time. Chuck is on the verge of going to look for her when she appears, checks Blair's temperature, and gives him a look while she tells Blair her temperature has risen sufficiently to examine her fully. She'll be back in a few minutes with a physician.

He's still standing, and glances over as he turns to move away from her bedside toward the door.

"Don't leave," she says suddenly. It's the first thing she's said out loud since _Right._

"I…" he has trouble finding his own voice. "I don't think I should be here while they're examining you."

Her mouth twists in an effort to keep calm. "Can you please stay? I don't want to be alone. You can- can you just face toward the wall?"

She sees his hesitation.

"If it's not too terrible," she adds weakly, her voice breaking. She almost smiles, like she's making a dry joke at her own state, poking fun at what she's been reduced to. Embarrassed. On his behalf as well as her own.

He turns back.

The physician, Dr. Lambright, arrives, with Annemarie in tow.

"My friend's going to stay with me while you examine me," Blair informs him quietly.

Chuck wheels the rolling table out of the way and stands near the head of her bed, further toward the wall than where she sits – Annemarie raises her bed so she sits upright – facing away from Blair, from her flushed feet and ripped flesh and raspy voice.

No sooner does Dr. Lambright tell her he's going to start by pressing his way up her legs, starting with her toes, feeling for any broken bones or tenderness, that her left fingers find the sleeve of Chuck's sweater, bunched above where his hands are dug in his pockets, buried deeper than ancient tree roots. He glances over, startled, to find her brown eyes looking up at his. She peers up at him, eyes lost.

He unearths his left hand and slips his fingers through hers.

They draw blood from her right arm, and she's brave and doesn't so much as squeak when they miss her veins twice. She does ask after an excruciatingly silent few minutes, in a pained whisper, how many tubes are they going to take?

"Three more, love," Annemarie soothes. "Almost finished."

Does this hurt? No. Can she feel this? Yes.

He's starting to relax too much, to feel too much relief at the lack of horrible developments, when she clenches her fingers around his and gasps.

"Try to breathe, Miss Waldorf," Dr. Lambright murmurs, sounding like he's raised his head to look at her. His voice is not unkind. "Likely fracture," he says to Annemarie, who is noting everything down on Blair's chart. "Feels like seven and eight. X-rays."

"The right hand," she suggests.

"Radiology after we're finished here."

They work the rest of the way up her body, dutifully avoiding her leg. She'll need stitches in both places on her face, the doctor explains, and he can hear Blair swallowing over and over near his elbow while the man shines light into her open wounds, seemingly uncomfortable with his nearness.

"Blair," Annemarie asks kindly, "are you sure you wouldn't rather be alone for the remainder of the exam?"

She hesitates, her fingers loosening around his. Still wrapped in the heating blankets, she's sweating now, and her hand is damp and warm. He moves his thumb over the knuckle of her own thumb, where it's been resting all this time, just once. "I'll go if you want or stay if you want," he tells her without turning. Really, he's not sure which would be worse. "It's completely up to you."

The memory cracks through him: _she needed someone, and I was there._

"I don't want to be alone," she says for the third time in an hour. To Annemarie: "We can speak privately after."

The doctor's bedside manner improves dramatically, to almost solicitous, during the latter part of the exam; in gentle tones, he tells her everything he's about to do before he does it. Checking the wound on the side of her leg- which they all know, and have known, is there; looking for any other trauma-related injury in the middle third of her body; and finally, he hears her gulp a little, then a faint sniff as Annemarie flattens her bed to horizontal, laying her body out in one long line, and suddenly her face is in his view: eyes shut, lashes wet, tears leaking out into the recently-dried waves at her temples, struggling and succeeding, with almost militaristic discipline, to keep herself quiet as she grips his hand like it's the last thing she has to hold onto so she won't fall over the edge into- what?

And he brings his other hand from its locked fist in his pocket and covers the back of hers with it, holding hers just as tightly, desperate to close his eyes but refusing- just in case she opens her eyes and needs to look at something, someone, a familiar face- refusing to let her go over the edge.

In case she needs someone again.

 _Actually, you don't even have me._

He'll be there.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you so much to my readers! To my anonymous reviewers, I wish I could thank you personally, but just know I'm very grateful for your time and attention :)**

 **Note to all readers- this story comes with a trigger warning, and this chapter is particularly sensitive. If that's a concern, please proceed with caution.**

i.

She speaks with Dr. Lambright and Annemarie privately after they're finished, wiping her tears and releasing his hand, parting her lips and hiding the fact that she's trying to catch his eye, even as she does it- "I'll wait," he tells her before she asks- and it's a waste of time, this formality, because they all know the answer, although she was the last to know. Just as she was the last to know what was written on her leg.

They don't send him to get X-rays done with her; no one tells him she's gone until she has, and he's watching the school closures tick by like a never-ending rolodex on the television in the waiting room – a Friday snow day; let all adolescents rejoice – when Annemarie comes to get him for the second time.

"How long does she need to stay here?" It's a safe question. He wants to ask if her ribs are broken- he guesses they are; but he'd rather not try to get a medical professional to violate the law by giving him confidential information before it's even eight in the morning.

"At least overnight for observation. Her temperature is still climbing, and with this kind of exposure and the other…" she falters. "…complications – it would be ideal to keep her on fluids for 24 hours after she's back at a normal level. Hypothermia can be dangerously dehydrating."

"She'll need a private room."

Annemarie nods. "We've alerted the eleventh floor; they're seeing what's available…"

They round a corner a few feet from her current door. He comes to a stop, swivels to face Annemarie. "Her father is a partner at Cravath; her mother is Eleanor Waldorf of Eleanor Waldorf Designs. And if it helps," he lays on politely, "my father is Bart Bass, chairman and CEO of Bass Industries, who if I'm not mistaken donates a healthy six figures every year to this hospital. I hope you don't find it indelicate of me to ask you to relay, if the eleventh floor comes up empty on private singles, that Bart Bass would be greatly appreciative if they could look again."

The nurse's kindly face doesn't react in any visible way. "I'm sure they can find her a private room on the first try, but I'll keep that in mind."

He nods and raises a fist to tap on her door.

ii.

Blair has two broken ribs – Dr. Lambright knows his fractures; ribs seven and eight, indeed – and a fractured metatarsal, with all the swelling and inflammation that these injuries imply.

She's wrapped back up in blankets. "The X-ray machine was cold," she tells him idly.

"They're working on getting you a private room," he offers in return.

Blinking back up at him: "I still can't shower."

Checkmate.

He stops a few feet from her bed. "I thought they said you could once you were examined."

Her gaze drops to the middle of his chest. "They have to do something else."

Can she see the way his heart hammers across the silence that follows that statement?

"What?"

"It's called a rape kit."

She lifts her head and looks at him, tears welling up again. They're glittering, actually somewhat mesmerizing, as much as he sickens himself by thinking so. The corners of her mouth curve up a little, almost a wry smile, and stay that way while she breaks eye contact. It didn't look like she really saw him, anyway. He wonders what, exactly, she was seeing.

He reaches for her hand again. He doesn't know what else to do. She doesn't notice, but he sees a scuff on his sleeve, from when he patted at her bleeding mouth in the cab.

"I guess it's pretty involved. It takes a while," she goes on in a whisper, her hand drifting across her lap- he's on her right side now, with the bruised hand newly splinted- to rest in his. "I agreed to file a police report." He can barely understand her, her voice has slunk to such a low volume. "It's the next step after talking to them."

He opens his mouth. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

It seems to take several seconds before she hears him. Then she shakes her head. Her words are listless, slow, dreamlike. "Just… after they move me upstairs, could you call Serena and ask her to come… to be with me… during? I don't…" she trails off.

She doesn't want to be alone.

"I told them my parents are away… and they're figuring out the next flight they can take back," she adds.

He nods.

"…Luckily, a minor can… receive… medical treatment…" she's slow and stumbling again, like she was last night- "in these situations… without the consent or even… knowledge of their parents."

He blinks miserably down at her. Her head has dropped further.

"I took the abortion pill already."

For some reason, this is the statement that finally enrages him. The broken bones, the gashes on her face, have poisoned his stomach past the point of even wanting a drink- and the thought of someone else- unwanted- inside her- taking pleasure from doing these things to her- and using her- and actually _finishing-_

"Just as a precaution," she continues, conversationally, as though they're still talking about the blizzard. Her voice is lilting as ever, but with the crush of sandpaper on top now. "I don't remember much. Really… not much…" She blinks, eyes closing for a few seconds before they open slowly. "A little, here and there." Their eyes meet again. "Rohypnol. It's still wearing off, apparently."

He closes his eyes.

Tightens his grip on her.

"Blair…"

"You don't have to stand. Bring the chair around to this side," she suggests, as though suddenly realizing she's being an inconsiderate hostess.

There's nothing he wants to do less than sit by her bedside uselessly. _The abortion pill._ The clock suddenly starts ticking in his mind, coming up on, what, eight, ten hours since it happened? At least three other places he could be more efficiently using this time spring suddenly to mind. _Rohypnol._ But he told her he wouldn't leave her alone, so he doesn't.

"Are you in pain?" he finally asks.

"Still numb" – and he understands what she means: all over. "They'll stitch me up once I'm moved upstairs, they said… rather than stay down here longer to wait for someone to free up."

She shakes her head after a minute or so of quiet. Then exhales out her nose, almost a chuckle if there was a smile on her face.

"What?"

Her face crumples, brows scrunching together, mouth drawing inward in anguish.

He grabs at her wrist, waiting for a monitor to go off- something they missed- she's about to go into heart failure; a seizure; the drug is causing an aneurysm-

"Blair. What?" He stands, looking over his shoulder to the closed door of her room, ready to run for it. He could be out the door in less than three seconds.

"No- I, just…" she shakes her head, still the picture of pain.

Her damp dark hair falls over one shoulder.

"I…" she squeezes her eyes closed – a tremble even as she visibly tries to steel herself- "… 'rode hard and put away wet.'"

And she withdraws her arm from his grasp, which has gone limp anyway.

He's breathless, wordless.

And she covers her face with her hands, and cries.

iii.

An hour later, she's settled in her room upstairs, a surprisingly quiet corner room, and Serena is on the way. He stepped out while they were setting up Blair's machines and listened to the forgotten voice message Serena left him last night, before he called her, though he had a sinking feeling he knew the gist of what she'd said.

 _Chuck, it's Serena. Have you talked to Blair? She and I got in a fight earlier and I came over to apologize, but she hasn't come home yet and it's almost 11:30. She's ignoring my calls. The weather is getting bad and I'm going to head home, but if she's with you- or… if you see her, or hear from her, can you please tell her I'm sorry and ask her to call me?_

He clenched and unclenched his jaws, breathing deep. He'd started ignoring that call at 10:43 PM – the first of four. By 11:30, he was probably in the beginning stages of round two with Cadence. And Blair was… where?

And why?

 _I have no one else to turn to but you._

 _I don't want you anymore._

He had peeked into Blair's room before pressing Send on Serena's name, thumb poised above the button.

Annemarie was putting Blair's humidified oxygen tank in position next to her bed; she'll only need to breathe it in once an hour now, the nurse was explaining.

 _Chuck? Are you in your room? I knocked twice-_

 _I'm not home. Listen- I need you to go downstairs and get in a car and come to Mt. Sinai._

 _What? What happened? Are you okay?_

A resident will be up to take care of her stitches shortly, Annemarie promised. And was he sure he didn't want anything to drink?

 _Blair. She's- she was…_

Swallowed.

 _Assaulted._

 _Assaulted? What are you talking about?_

"Blair," he'd said, as soon as she stopped crying long enough to hear him, in her room downstairs, not able to reach for her hand – that same hand he just covered with both of his while she clung to it like a lifeline an hour ago; the same hand he used to grab, or that used to grab his, while they kissed, or touched, or looked at each other in the dark – afraid to touch her without being invited, not deserving to touch her ever again, "I'm so sorry-"

"Please, it's forgotten."

"No, it's…"

She'd covered her eyes with the same hand, looking like a child playing pin the tail on the donkey. "Just ironic. That's all. Just ironic."

She'd looked at him a few seconds later, eyes red with tears. "Let's forget it. Thank you for being here, anyway."

"Hey." Panic beating up in him like a million black butterflies flapping in unison, he'd reached for her shoulder, realizing suddenly that she thought he helped her, stayed with her, in spite of feeling the way he expressed he felt last night. But faltered, hand drifting back down to the railing. "I didn't- I didn't mean that. Any of that."

She nodded, once. "It doesn't matter."

The hell it didn't.

And she didn't reach for his hand again.

He kept his voice even, but it came out rougher than he meant it to. _Don't make me say it, Serena._

 _This isn't funny._ Pause. _Chuck._ Her voice broke. _Tell me you're kidding._

Silence.

 _God…_ A whimper, barely audible.

 _The roads will probably be messy. Don't rush. She's not alone. Just call me when you're here and I'll come meet you._

Alone now, a much bigger, quieter room, with an actual view, if that isn't too cliché; still snowing.

He has to make her understand.

He leans on the side of her bed.

"None of those things are true," he tells her without preamble. "None."

She's composed now; maybe the rest of the Rohypnol has worn off. She achieves a too-steady raise of the eyebrow. It's warped by her flushed skin, red eyes, redder nose.

"Sure they are," she replies evenly. Her knee twitches under the single warming blanket they left her with at this stage in her recovery. "Haven't you seen my leg?"

He can't respond to that. Suddenly he does want a drink. Several.

Her eyes sink, defeated, to her lap. She doesn't want to talk about this, he sees, and he's being selfish in trying to force it. She doesn't have to listen to his guilty insistences right now. Not now, of all hours. The only thing more selfish than having said it in the first place is insisting on revisiting it when he's sitting, healthy and unharmed, on her hospital bed.

Tentatively, she says: "Can I ask you a favor?" And when he looks up, raising his head, she does the same.

"Anything."

She shakes her head. "You won't send this in?"

Shock is not really the appropriate response to this, given yesterday he reported that she'd gone to bed with two guys in one week, but it's the first feeling to hit. "No," he promises. He wants to say _of course not_ , but he hasn't earned the right to be incredulous about the idea. The fact that she thinks it's possible burns more than it should.

 _Rode hard and put away wet._

She nods, the tiniest gesture, and he again fights down the urge to tell her he didn't mean it – he was just trying to hurt her because she made him feel – she made him _feel_ , and she took away his power over himself, and then she made him _hurt_ , and he can't do feel and hurt – he just can't – and the only way to push them back under and wrench his self-control back from her, the only thing he could do at this new kind of hurt, was to seek out her sensitive spot, and not the ones on her body (hip, shoulder, neck), but the ones on her soul. And then hit them all, hard, in quick succession, and make her feel what he felt, and hurt her like he was hurt. And then she wouldn't be above him anymore, and she'd have no power, and he'd pull the chips back across the table and sign on the dotted line and reclaim his King. And walk away from the board. From her.

Except he hadn't meant any of it, and she'd walked away from him. And into this. And here they are.

Instead, he makes a vow to her: "Nothing. Ever again."

And he means it.

iv.

Serena arrives while Blair is getting her stitches; he excuses himself – she's almost finished – and goes down to meet her at the elevators. Her movements are quick, jerky, stamping snow off her boots and lowering the hood on her coat, and her eyes are fiery with worry.

"How bad is it?" she asks as soon as she sees him.

"Bad," he says, punching the elevator button. She gets in without a word.

When the doors close behind them, he leans his head against the wall, tipping his face up toward the eleventh floor.

"Tell me," she insists, strangled, hoarse, like he's teasing her, withholding a juicy piece of gossip.

He closes his eyes. "Two broken ribs, a broken hand, stitches in a few places…"

"Oh, my God." Serena tilts her head the opposite way, to the floor.

"She was drugged." He swallows, having forgotten the key element. "And hypothermic. She'd been walking around in the park for God knows how long."

"How did she get here?"

He licks his lips. "I brought her."

He side steps further questioning as they arrive on the eleventh floor.

Halfway down the corridor: "I fought with her," Serena murmurs.

He looks sideways at her, not breaking stride. "I don't think any of us was at our best with her yesterday."

Wide blue eyes swim with tears. "But I told her she was on her own." Her voice wavers. "That she could handle this one alone."

 _I don't want to be alone._

They slow to a stop.

"She asked for you," he points out, simply, not knowing what else to say, "and you're here now."

Serena nods as if absorbing his words to strengthen her. "You're right. Okay."

He goes in first, leaving her a few feet away from the door.

"Serena's here," he tells Blair, whose garish red marks have yielded to neat black-dotted ones. He bends one knee and perches on the edge of her bed, facing her.

"Blair," he says gently. "I need you to do something for me."

She gives a careful smile – she can't move her face much with her new stitches – that has an inspiringly sly Blairish quality to it. "Only you would ask me for a favor right now," she almost teases.

He manages a smile too. It even reaches his eyes, halfway. "I need you to tell me where you went after you left me last night."

"Left you," she repeats, more a statement than a question.

"After you left Bemelman's." Matter-of-fact. "Tell me where you went."

The smile fades. "Does it matter?"

He nods, a small, long movement. "Yes. It does."

She swallows, eyes moving over his face. "I really don't want to talk about what happened last night."

"We don't have to." He holds her gaze. "All I want to know is there you went. Then I'll drop it."

When he gets up to leave, she murmurs his name. "I appreciate… thank you."

 _Please stop saying that._

"Call me if you need anything."

She actually looks sunburnt, reclined on the bed, hair having dried in full, careless waves like she's just come from a salt-air afternoon splashing on St. Thomas's.

"You don't need to check in again," she offers.

 _I told her she was on her own._

He drapes his coat neatly over both arms and places it against his torso. "I'll be back this afternoon."

Serena is steeling herself outside: raking her fingers through her hair, smoothing her coat, shifting her feet.

He gives her a look that's entirely without slyness or humor. "She's settled in bed. You're on, Van der Woodsen."

She's nodding rapidly. "Okay."

"Call me with any updates." It's not a request or an assurance, like it was with Blair. "I'll be back – but if there's anything urgent."

He waits for a minute after she goes in, and then turns around and looks through the small window of meshed glass in Blair's door. Serena is sitting where he just was a minute ago, leaning forward, one hand on the bed near Blair's left thigh, bracing herself- _close; careful_ , he warns silently- Blair's head on her shoulder, shaking slightly with sobs. A muted movement, he knows, because her ribs are broken and even sitting like that must be uncomfortable.

Serena's arm is around her, and she's kissing the top of Blair's brunette head between her lips moving at a steady rhythm. He only has to watch three or four times before he can make out what she's saying.

 _I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you._

Blair's hands come around to Serena's back, the injured one gingerly holding on.

 _Untouched._

 _If you see her, or hear from her, can you please tell her I'm sorry…?_

Serena's free hand strokes over Blair's hair, lips still moving, pouring love and devotion over her like only Serena can.

 _All I want to know is where you went._

 _-Hi, you._

 _Then I'll drop it._

He gets in the first cab that rolls up, remembering he needs to text Arthur, who will almost definitely be waiting for him at The Palace despite the snow day. It's a few minutes past nine.

"Where to?"

 _It doesn't matter._

 _I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you._

He releases his fists, with effort, and unlocks the jaws that clamped together when he saw Blair begin to raise her face, hot and soaked, from Serena's shoulder, letting out what she couldn't let out in front of him.

When he turned away so she wouldn't see him through the window, waiting to catch her in a moment of weakness, again.

 _Ever again._

 _Only you would ask me for a favor right now._

 _Whore._

"Mark Bar, please. Madison and 77th."

v.

Shortly after Chuck leaves, the police arrive.

Blair tries her best, but she doesn't remember everything from the night before. A nurse, angelic and smelling of baby powder, hovers nearby with Blair's consent, noting things down in a spiral notebook that she's produced from a medium-depth white box that reads "Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit" above a long blank line.

Her lower lip?

"Bitten." It trembles over a heart-stopping pause. "He got angry when I fought back."

Try as she might, Serena can't keep all of her tears in, and a few escape at this admission.

Her cheek?

Blair's voice is barely audible. "The back of his hand." She looks down. "Same reason."

Can she walk them through what happened? – that's okay; just what she remembers.

"I was at Mark Bar."

He introduced himself; offered to get her another glass of wine.

"He said he splits his time between here and London."

He was charming.

Interesting.

"Just pleasant conversation. It was nice to talk to someone outside my normal circle."

Serena reads between the lines: _it was nice to talk to someone who didn't know every detail of my private life and judge me for it._

Does she have any idea when he might have drugged her drink?

Her eyelashes lift.

"I used the ladies' room while we were talking. That's the only time I was away." She cringes, almost apologetic.

What happened then?

"It was getting late. I wanted to get home. It had started to rain pretty hard…" she gazes at nothing. "He offered to get me a chauffeured car from the doorman at the apartment he keeps while he's here. He said cab drivers aren't careful on icy roads."

She closes her eyes.

"He had an umbrella. He held it up for both of us. His apartment building was just a block and a half."

How did she end up in the park?

She opens her eyes and levels them at the officer, dry irony playing across her face.

"I walked in myself." A long beat. "He said he heard what sounded like a child crying, just around the corner."

Hesitating under the streetlight, looking up at the heavy, wet sky; seconds from being, again, alone; her phone turned off in her pocket since she ordered her first drink.

"He said he'd never live with himself if he heard on the news that a child had been lost in the park the next morning…"

A tugging at the corner of her mind, a warning alarm going off; but he was tall, and handsome, and well-spoken, and had a kind warmth in his eyes. And she didn't want to be alone.

She knew kindness. She knew goodness.

Didn't she?

"It was just around the corner that he could hear it." She swallows. "He said I could have the umbrella and go if I didn't want to look."

And of course she cared. And of course she didn't want to possibly leave a child in harm's way.

She's a young woman, after all.

And of course, when having it put to her like that – _you can have the umbrella and go if you don't want to look with me_ – there was really nothing else that she could have done.

Than follow across Fifth and enter the park, hurrying along the footpath across from East 76th.

"But the child kept sounding further and further away."

So they kept looking.

And she was feeling, suddenly, fatigued. Coming on steadily, slow and heavy, as she strained her ears for a child's wail that she couldn't seem to hear.

"He said something about how his sister was lost in the woods as a child, and he couldn't let another family go through that." She actually smiles at this – a slow, nasty smile, eyes filling and stitches straining.

And then, deep enough in the park, under a cover of trees and nowhere near Fifth Avenue, as she was beginning to feel leaden with exhaustion, her thoughts even seeming to carry a peculiar weight and her head feeling like a burden to hold up as he half-supported, half-pulled her off the footpath in her heels, he kissed her.

"I don't… I don't remember as much after that."

Wet- the umbrella disappeared- and forceful hands on her waist.

The kind quality in his eyes gone.

"I remember I fought. But… I was feeling… fuzzy."

Her hand?

"Yes. My phone was in my pocket, and I was trying to turn it on without taking it out. But I was-" her chapped lips fit around the word- "clumsy. I got desperate…"

On her knees now, the forceful hands on the back of her head.

"…and tried to pull it out of my pocket. It fell and I went to go after it."

A screen lighting up in the dark, a bright square on the ground, a chance worth throwing herself after, sluggish mind trying to decide what to do with it once she got it-

The heel of an expensive wingtip coming down swiftly, deliberately, on an outstretched hand. A snap.

"Then I was on the ground."

Kicking, feebly, exhaustion winning, finding herself on her back, palm covering her mouth, phone's illuminated square settling back to black at lack of use.

Not needed after all, it supposed.

"I don't remember anything else after that."

Her ribs? Her leg?

Serena's eyes flick from officer to Blair, and down to Blair's legs, covered in hospital blue.

She shakes her head. "He kept calling me a…"

Serena's mouth tightens, eyes widening at Blair, who is oblivious.

"…but." Her head shakes again.

Does she know his name?

"He introduced himself as Isaac Winthrop."

She looks down in shame. Her voice breaks.

"It occurred to me when it was too late that that probably wasn't true."

What's the next thing she remembers?

 _Un_ , _deux_ , _trois_.

"I was in a cab with a classmate. Chuck Bass. I couldn't see well or feel anything. But I could hear him- he was counting to five in French. I knew his voice before I saw him."

Any idea why he might have been counting- in French?

She blinks.

Serena blinks.

She shrugs a little, a vacant non-smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. "No idea. I counted along with him, though."

 _Chuck._

"I speak pretty good French."

She'll call them, she agrees numbly, if she remembers anything else.

It's the nurse, Annemarie, who handles the rape kit. She's sweet and pleasant, and Blair seems comfortable around her; she works in the ER, but for whatever reason- Serena suspects it has something to do with Chuck- she's the one who is assigned to guide Blair through this process.

Blair hasn't finished crying completely. She pulled herself together, to an almost eerie stoicism, when the police arrived, but now she is, ironically, what she herself would label "sniveling." Tears leak from her eyes indifferently, losing their form on her cheeks as they flatten out and blend with the plane of wetness on her skin.

It's a good thing, Serena thinks at first, that Blair's room is large. A huge sheet of white paper is laid out in the open area next to her bed – actually, this looks like a double room, half of which was stripped, now that she looks closer.

Annemarie explains, in soothing tones, that because they've already removed the clothing Blair was wearing at the time of the assault, they can skip that part of the examination, but that the white paper will catch any trace DNA while she's more thoroughly examined.

Nude.

Blair swipes at her cheek halfheartedly with her bandaged hand, the other one clutching to Serena's own, and looks at her desperately.

"You don't have to do this right now," she murmurs back.

Blair squeezes her eyes shut, looking away as if to shut out the offer. "Get it over with." She looks back in Serena's direction, but not directly at her. "Could you untie the back of my gown, please?"

Serena nods wordlessly and steps behind her, the obedient lady-in-waiting, feet off the white paper, leaning over and opening the ties. Blair shrugs, carefully, plucking at the fabric until it slides off, and hands it to Annemarie.

Annemarie packs it away in paper, seals it in a plastic bag. "We've got a fresh one for you," she tells Blair gently.

"I'm only doing this so I can shower," Blair responds, an attempt at imperiousness as much for her own benefit as for anyone else's, but it comes out weak and strangled.

Serena's breath catches in her throat when she sees Blair's body. The red-purple splotch on her ribs, the word carved into her thigh. Her lips move, but she mutes herself: "Oh, God."

The word has been stitched up, just like Blair's face. Chuck didn't warn her about that.

Time slides by, fluid, as Annemarie starts from the bottom of Blair's body, swabbing, examining, using tweezers to lift invisible particles from Blair's skin and tuck them into pieces of tissue, and those into small clear bags, stopping to seal and label each one as she goes.

"Tell me if you have any questions," she says more than once.

Still not really crying, a tear escapes from Blair's eye. "How long until I can shower?" she tries at a joke.

The nurse inserts a swab between Blair's legs, having informed her in advance that she'd be doing so – and that it might feel cold – and it comes back pink. This doesn't seem to surprise her, although it stops Serena's breath.

"Blair…"

Blair's eyes are closed, but she cringes at what she must know the result is, and casts about for Serena's hand knowing, somehow, that it's outstretched, finding it in a moment, still standing trembling and naked on the white paper.

The nurse gently tells Blair she's torn, and asks her permission to photograph the injury later in the process.

"Do I have to?" Blair mutters, brokenly.

"No. It's completely voluntary. We can skip it."

Blair swallows, resolve setting in the lines of her face. "No. I want to do this right."

"Blair," Serena begins again.

"If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right," Blair plows on.

The nurse moves on, examining Blair's navel, the flat lines and narrow curve of her waist, her unmarked chest and neck.

Just beginning to form, Serena notices an oblong bruise on Blair's left wrist.

Annemarie notices it, too, when she's extracting and swabbing and clipping Blair's fingernails into a set of plastic bags: left hand in one, right hand in the other.

Avoiding the stitched lip, she takes a saliva sample, and scrapes a few cells from the inside of Blair's cheek.

Blair's posture has slackened throughout this long process, and Serena, standing to her left side, sees the defeated rounding of her shoulders, the pearls of her vertebrae, the forearm that covers her bare chest, the slightly inverted knees.

"Can she put something on now?" Serena asks.

"We're almost through with the physical examination, but we can stop or take a break…"

"It's fine." Blair's eyes slide closed again.

The last step is to comb out Blair's hair, in case any piece of debris might have lodged there. Annemarie uses a special comb for this, starting near the ends of her unusually full and wavy hair – air-dried – and working her way up to higher and higher starting points.

This is when Blair begins to really cry. She turns toward Serena fully, the nurse subtly rotating around her, and opens her teary eyes. She looks… guilty.

"It feels good," she admits as the comb trails through her hair, tracing her scalp. Like she's forgotten what a pleasant physical sensation feels like.

Serena begins to cry then, too.

Almost finished, above Blair's left temple, lifting the hair up to detangle what's underneath it, the comb stops.

"What is it?" Blair asks.

"I'm not sure," Annemarie replies, fetching another clear plastic bag and withdrawing its empty tissue paper insert.

Blair lifts her bandaged hand without thinking.

"Please don't," Annemarie stops her.

Blair wraps her arm back around herself, sniffling. Serena brings her free hand up, the one that's not holding Blair's, and passes her thumb across one of Blair's closed eyes, and then the other.

She mouths: _I love you_ – when Blair opens her eyes as Annemarie finishes maneuvering whatever particles she's found into the tissue paper.

"Do you know what it is?" Blair asks, eyes on Serena, but words to Annemarie.

Annemarie hesitates. "It appears to be residue of dried semen."

"Stop," Blair replies quickly, as though it's been tearing at her throat this entire time and Annemarie has just opened the release hatch: "Stop. I want to stop, please."

The nurse nods. "Do you want to do the photographs?"

Tears are pouring down Blair's face again. She tries for a moment to hold back a sob, and then lets it go, a ragged cry escaping along with it, face crumpling. "I…"

Serena smooths a hand over the top of Blair's head. "You don't have to."

"How quickly can you do it?"

"Once the camera's set up, we can be finished in sixty seconds. Just quickly- there- and then the leg and rib injuries."

Gasping her sobs away, Blair nods.

She sits on her bed, Serena behind her, their heads tilted together and Serena's arms around her, covering her chest so she doesn't have to, and when Annemarie is ready, Blair turns and buries her face in Serena's shoulder, spreading her legs unwillingly with a whimper for what seems like the thousandth time in the last twelve hours.

In a voice as warm as velvet, Serena counts down from sixty, each number a promise in Blair's ear.

The camera has an odd, unusual flash setting, which Serena assumes illuminates residue of blood and semen and God knows what else- and Annemarie works with the ruthless swiftness of someone dismantling a bomb.

Around the halfway point, Blair adjusts so Annemarie can photograph her ribs and the black word on her leg.

"Not my face," Blair murmurs.

"No need," Annemarie assures her, though Serena feels sure she'd photograph it if Blair were willing.

The white paper is folded up last of all, tucked away into its own plastic bag- the largest of all- and sealed up, topping off the white box, on whose long black line the nurse now writes: "Blair Waldorf."

Blair watches her do it, Serena still beside her, arms wrapped around.

Annemarie approaches her, a respectful few feet away, and explains that her medical details and account of the incident – she skims over "incident" with no elaboration or emphasis – round out the kit, which will now be sealed as evidence and transferred to the appropriate department at the NYPD. If she has any questions or concerns, she's welcome to contact them at any time.

Blair nods slowly. She's still nude, vulnerable, on the edge of the bed, knees pressed together. Her hair falls over her shoulder as she nods.

"Is there anything I can do for you or any questions I can answer?" Annemarie's voice is soft.

"Can you please recline the bed," Blair replies. It's not supposed to be flat, because she's not supposed to lie flat while her rib is so freshly broken, but Annemarie does it anyway.

She slides herself carefully back, reaching for her forgotten blanket and pulling it over her bare body, and tugs at Serena's sleeve. Serena swipes at her own cheeks, kicks off her boots, and lies herself down next to Blair, a layer of electric warmth separating them.

Through closed eyes, tears coursing again: "Just stay beside me for a few minutes."

"I'll stay beside you forever," Serena tells her.

She sees Annemarie pause, looking at Blair's removed IV, and deciding to forego it for now.

"I love you." Serena's wide eyes watch Blair's pink-and-white profile. "I'll stay beside you forever."

Blair tries at a smile through her tears. "Stay here forever until we're gray."

"As long as it takes."

It's nearly an hour later, past two in the afternoon, when Blair stops crying and licks her lips.

"I want to take a shower," she whispers.

"I'll get Annemarie."

And she's alone in her room, naked and warm under her blanket, when she realizes she's not shaking anymore.

 **Author's personal note- sections in this chapter were some of the most difficult I've written so far due to wanting to handle the sensitive, intimate content poignantly but not gratuitously, and to respect and try to stay true to Blair's character. I'm not at all trying to minimize the trauma of what Blair is going through.**

 **Also, I apologize if it seems like the story is moving too slowly; I'm lingering long over the important foundational scenes, but the pace will ebb and flow as we move along. Stick with me :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you to all those who have read and reviewed so far! I'm deeply appreciative and hope to keep earning your readership!**

i.

"How is she?"

"I… I don't know how to answer that."

His eyes shift upward, not looking at anything. A small shiver touches his spine, but he pushes down the images that keep rising, have been rising, unbidden, all day- beeping monitors and blood trickling from the side of her mouth and dilated pupils- "What do you mean? Is she worse?"

"Not physically, no. Her temperature is where it should be now. She's not shaking anymore, but she's in a lot of pain, which apparently is normal. Her muscles will be sore for a few days from the contractions. And she finally got to shower, which helped, at least temporarily. It seemed to make her feel better."

He breathes out.

He hears Serena breathe in sharply, and almost smiles at the way her golden warmth contrasts with his dark steadiness. The flighty angel and the practical mastermind. Down to their breathing, apparently, the way they handle crisis is entirely complementary.

Her voice is quiet. "Have you ever heard of a rape kit before today?"

"No."

"It's… it's the worst thing I've ever seen." She wavers. "Chuck, she's… I told her I'd stay with her, but I'm about to lose it and cry my eyes out."

He checks his watch. He's back in his room at The Palace, having just showered himself, hair damp and clad in socks, trousers and undershirt, looking for the sweater he wants to wear.

"I'll be back there within the hour. Can you hold it together for that long?" The sweater isn't in its usual spot in his gradient closet line-up. He pivots, surveying the rest of the rack for the gray cashmere.

He shouldn't care what he looks like right now. He knows that.

"Yes." But it doesn't sound like yes. "I want to stay, but I c… she's…"

Ordinarily he would find this irritating, but he understands.

"I know," he tells her.

"She's tired," Serena comments needlessly, and she knows it's needless. "She might go to sleep soon."

Black cashmere, green cashmere, blue alpaca, white wool with red stripes- "Did you get ahold of her parents?"

A sigh. "Yes. I thought her mother was going to have a heart attack. She said she'd call her father, but they're either getting on a redeye from Paris or chartering a plane- she said they'd do whatever was faster. Her father is in the countryside and needs time to get to Paris. I'm not sure if the weather here is going to cause problems." She cuts off her rambling. "They're coming."

"Did you give any reason why no one called them sooner?" He thumbs through the hangers. She likes the gray one. It's tailored cable-knit.

 _She slips it on once, not bothering to ask, and the v-neckline framing her collarbone as she maneuvers over to share his pillow- him turning on his side to face her, hissing when she inserts, without hesitation, one cold foot between his ankles- is a memory he comes to spend hours trying to forget._

"I gave as little information as possible," Serena admits. "I don't want to be on the receiving end of Waldorf anger right now. I'm about to have a meltdown. I'm pathetic."

He finds it, at last- hung under a navy sport coat. "You're not pathetic," he tells her as he yanks it off its hanger with uncharacteristic carelessness. "You're her friend."

 _Eyes closing, a smile on her face, after the stillness of looking at one another, blinking in the half-light of a Manhattan without sun. "It's cold."_

 _He smiles back. "Is that a command to warm you back up?"_

Serena sighs. "I'm both."

"Does she need anything? Anything I should pick up?"

"No."

" _No." A chuckle, still smiling. "Not like that- yet."_

She clears her throat. "Her world back."

 _She brings her other foot against his and nudges herself against him, chest to chest, his own cashmere against his skin, settling her head beneath his chin._

" _Like this."_

He can't forget. And he doesn't, really, want to. "I'll see you soon."

ii.

Serena meets him in the hall, coming down the corridor the opposite direction. "I just went to find Chapstick and a hairbrush for her," she says by way of greeting. "Thank God they have them at the gift shop."

She twists all of her hair into one fist and pulls it over her shoulder, forehead wrinkling like she's fighting to keep calm.

"You okay?" he asks her.

She wasn't kidding about being close to a meltdown; the question nearly reduces her to tears.

There's a waiting area, uncomfortable green-upholstered chairs and a TV on mute, across the hall. They sit against the wall. It's dimly lit; this is a quiet corner of the hospital.

"Today, I learned how terrible I am in a crisis," Serena murmurs.

"I'm sure you did better than you think."

The words tumble out of her mouth as though a response to what he just said: "She had semen- he- she had traces of semen in her hair." She covers her face in both hands, voice warbling with tears. "Chuck, you have no idea…"

That too-familiar bile is in his throat. He fights for control.

Mechanically, he takes the bundle against his chest- a brand new robe from The Palace, which was all he could think of that might be useful and was procured without delaying his return to her- to the hospital- and places it on the empty chair next to him.

He reaches for Serena's shoulder, and she turns willingly toward him, dropping her head onto his own shoulder. The little bag from the gift shop shifts on her lap as she unexpectedly puts her arms around his torso, clasping them together against his back, under his coat. She holds onto him like he's the antidote for some black poison and draws a shaky breath.

His voice sounds foreign. "Did you see her leg?"

"I…" Her forehead rests on his coat. "I can't even talk about it. Her ribs- her side is turning this horrible purple color, like if you pricked her she'd just bleed everywhere."

"No one's going to prick her," he says firmly, and does not elaborate.

She rears back, slumped and pink-faced, hair a forgotten mess; she could use a brush herself.

"I was bad to her last night," she whispers again. "She… she doesn't seem angry at me, but it's my fault she was alone."

"It's not." Even firmer.

"You don't understand…"

"I do," he insists. "And it's not. This is not your fault. And it's not helping her to think that way."

She nods, but tears spill over again.

"What are we going to do?" she murmurs brokenly.

He takes a deep breath.

 _Mark Bar._

" _I need the address of the bartender who was on duty last night."_

He looks at Serena, golden Serena, good-girl-gone-bad-gone-good-again, beloved Serena, carefree and sensitive and beyond loving- full of love, overflowing with love, and an overwhelming sense of that most exquisite, cruel, taunting aspiration: hope.

"I don't know about you," he says, smooth as if he were offering her a drink, "but I plan on killing the guy."

She shuts her eyes, exasperated. Her mouth curls petulantly. "Chuck…"

" _We can't exactly give that out."_

" _I understand it's unorthodox. I only want to speak to him. Just a few minutes of his time. I can make it worth his while."_

A ghost of a smile settles on his face. Like he's teasing her. Flirting. "It's an eye for an eye."

She rolls her eyes. "She's not dead. Stop it."

" _What for, exactly?"_

" _In probably a few hours, the NYPD will be knocking with the same questions. A friend of mine was assaulted last night, and it seems she might have met the guy here. I simply want to see what the bartender might remember."_

"You said it yourself- her old world back. That can no longer exist while the guy is living." And as much as he wanted, last night, to find a way to undo what he did to her, his desire to avenge what it's led to is tenfold.

"You're not serious." The tears have stilled, stragglers tracking down her cheeks until they're spent. Her arms are still clasped around him, her face level with his, close enough to look- really look- in his eyes. She searches him, looking for proof that he's being sarcastic.

 _He has the manager's attention. "Why not leave it to them?"_

" _I don't intend to interfere. I want to speed up the search in any way I can. There's no time to lose. The assault happened nearly twelve hours ago already." Pause. With a hard swallow and a momentary lapse of composure: "If you could see the state she's in, you'd understand."_

" _I'd have to give him a call first and see if he's willing to speak to you."_

" _Tell him I'll meet him anywhere. And again- well worth his while."_

He regards her for a long moment, and the smile turns into a smirk. "Of course not."

"Don't be so dramatic," she pleads. "That scares me."

"That's my nature," he says, with an apologetic tilt of the head to smooth her over. The sardonic expression she knows.

"I hate him." Her head finds its way back to his shoulder; vacantly he thinks of Humphrey, on whose wool-blend-bedecked shoulder this head belongs.

His hand comes up and pats her hair, somewhat awkwardly. Lingers on the back of her head, like it did to Blair earlier. It seemed to comfort her.

" _Sure, I remember her. Two glasses of red."s"_

" _Do you remember anything about her leaving with someone? A man?"_

" _She left with someone she was talking to. It seemed like they knew each other."_

"That's what you're going to do, then. You're going to hate him."

Pause.

"You might be surprised at how fulfilling you find it."

She's silent.

The sun dipped low in the sky on his way here; early days, January, when it's dark mid-to-late afternoon.

" _He was tall. Dark hair. Expensive suit. They talked for a while at a table for two before they left."_

" _Did she seem okay?"_

" _When she left, yeah."_

" _Not before that?"_

" _When she first came in, she was crying."_

"Dan's been calling me all day," Serena says, as though also realizing her head is on the wrong shoulder. She doesn't move.

His hand moves a little on her hair, absently, while her words echo in his mind. She really does need a brush.

His hand stops. "You can't tell him."

She lifts her head up at that. "I know."

He sees that it's a lie.

"Serena…" His voice is lethal. "You can't go telling people."

"Dan isn't people," she protests, not bothering to argue that she was not bluffing a moment ago. "He's Dan."

He rolls his eyes, not bothering to stifle it. "Would you want her telling someone if this happened to you?"

She scoffs. "Like she'd even have a chance to. Gossip Girl would blast it all over the place."

"Someone would have to tip her off. You know, and I know. That's it. I'm not going to tell." _Nothing. Ever again._ "And if you don't either, then we're safe. Once you start telling Humphrey, he tells his sister…"

"He would never." An indignant hiss.

He gives her a hard look. "I'm not saying he'd do it to hurt her. But Humphrey doesn't care about protecting her. They're not friends."

"He wouldn't tell," she insists. "He wouldn't hurt me. And it's the wrong thing to do. And Dan doesn't do the wrong thing."

"You have to respect her privacy," he grinds out, frustration eating at him. "This isn't yours to tell."

 _When she came in, she was crying._

Crying. In public. At Mark Bar- one block from Pleiades.

He pauses. "We've all done enough to cause her harm in the last few days."

She blinks back at him.

"Okay."

As they get to their feet, he asks: "Has anyone called Dorota?"

Serena's eyes are downcast. "She said Dorota should be the last to know. She said she'd be beside herself with worry. I texted her and told her Blair's phone got lost and she's staying with me to ride out the storm." She wipes a hand over her face.

He goes to step toward the corridor, and Serena puts a hand on his arm.

"She's in pretty bad shape," she tells him softly. "I just want you to be prepared. She's not crying much, but she's just really quiet and… scattered."

"How so?"

" _Do you think it's better to be raped by someone with money than not?" She speaks softly, suddenly, hair soaked from her shower, which took ages as Annemarie guided her through the necessary procedures to avoid the fresh stitches on her leg and face, dressed in a fresh gown and with a new blanket wrapped around, having just taken off the humidified oxygen for the last time, if all goes according to plan._

 _Startled blue eyes and a straightened spine. "What? Blair-"_

" _Do you know," she continues on, pensively, "that I left that bar with him, someone I didn't know at all, after leaving my drink with him while I went to the restroom, because he was wearing an expensive suit? Can you see me doing any of that, leaving, even letting myself be engaged in conversation, with someone in Men's Wearhouse?"_

 _Blue eyes meet brown._

 _Serena's mouth opens._

" _What does that say about me and what I value?" Blair holds her gaze._

" _It doesn't say anything," Serena tells her softly. "Not about you."_

" _Hm." A thoughtful syllable, as if to say, 'I'll take it under consideration.'_

 _Then silence again._

Serena swallows. "I can't really describe it. I think she's just trying to make sense of what happened."

He nods. "I can handle it."

He'll have to.

"Of course you can," she agrees, withdrawing her hand after a quick pat. "I envy your ability to not let things affect you." And though she means it as a compliment, it hits him like a blow to the diaphragm.

iii.

Blair is sleepy, sitting up, and recognition, if not a light, flicks in her eyes when they come in.

"We come bearing gifts," Serena says, presenting the Chapstick and the brush. Blair sits up carefully, favoring her left side, as Serena unwraps the brush, and then she goes to work on Blair's damp hair.

"For you," Chuck says, placing the folded robe on her knees, taking the excuse to look her over. Physically, she looks the same, though less flushed. It's softened to a blushy pink from an irritated red.

She tries a smile. "Thank you."

"I need to go home before my mother sends a detective after me," Serena apologizes when she finishes with Blair's hair. "I didn't tell her anything, and she's suspicious I'm going to try to find my way to Brooklyn in this weather."

"Ah, the joys of having an absentee parent," Chuck comments idly.

Blair stretches up to the extent she can, IV back in her arm, when Serena wraps her arms around her.

"I love you," Serena says into her ear; he senses it more than hears it. "Your parents should be here in the morning, but if they aren't, or if you want me to come back at any time…" she's stroking Blair's hair now, with a tender, familiar warmth that only she can achieve. "You know how to get me." She nods at Chuck with a rueful smile. "And if you don't, he sure does."

"Ah, but can he pick out Chapstick?" Blair shudders as she leans back too quickly, frowning at some jab of pain, before she reaches the half-reclined support of the top of her bed.

He tilts his head roguishly, tugging his scarf off. "I'm Chuck Bass."

Serena shrugs her coat on with an eyeroll. "Oh, God."

But Blair almost chuckles, eyes flitting, sleepily, closed – and it's worth it, again, fleetingly, to be Chuck Bass. He makes a mental note to be funny.

After Serena's gone and the robe is spread over her – she can't put it on because of the IV, but drapes it underneath her blanket – a soft silence settles over them. He thinks Blair is asleep, having last seen her eyes closed, and is startled when she speaks.

"How are the roads?"

"A mess."

"Did I miss anything exciting?"

" _There aren't cameras in the bar, and the ones in the hotel lobby wouldn't have caught them the way they left."_

" _There must be a way I can get a look at him."_

He shakes his head slowly at her, as though thinking it over.

"No."

 _The bartender, a simple older gentleman from Astoria who had agreed to meet with him in Grand Central, thought. "There are several galleries on the block- and an embassy a few doors down on the opposite side. I'd be shocked if they didn't all have cameras, probably with night vision. If I were you, I'd start knocking on doors."_

She seems satisfied with that.

"They're searching for my phone now, in the park. And my shoes."

And other things.

"Hopefully they find my headband, too."

"The snow slowed down a lot," he tells her, looking for comforting things to say and coming up at a loss. "They'll probably have found them by now. Maybe just waiting for tomorrow before they come- to give you a break."

"And my…" her voice cracks, but doesn't waver further. No tears spring to her eyes. "My stockings. They'll be there too."

His upper teeth find his lower lip and test it, rolling front to back.

"And… underwear." Her face is glum now. She could even be talking to herself.

They'd probably be arriving at Mark Bar now, looking for Sam, the bartender who was on duty last night, since his shift started around four. Hours after he'd met with Chuck and been paid handsomely for doing so.

Due process is one thing; cash is another.

She trips on, still, like he's not there: "My… dignity; my self-respect. I wonder if they'll find those. They might have gotten washed away in the rain."

He bites down on his lip now, sucking in a deep breath through his nose.

"My old self. Blair."

Her own name sounds foreign on her tongue.

 _She's in his arms, the back of his limo, their second round, and she's proving as insatiable as he could have ever fantasized she'd be: he groans her name as she brings their hips together, desperate to have her close in a way that goes beyond lust. No one, he feels sure, has ever wanted her as much as he does right now. From the way she's gripping him, responding to him, it would seem she agrees._

 _And that's a disgrace. He's driven to show her just how desirable she is- to erase the effects of months of doubt that he now sees Nate has caused._

" _Chuck," she corrects him, teasing, kissing his lips._

 _He shakes his head, smiling back, and insists: "Blair."_

" _Chuck," with a giggle._

 _As she begins to rock down against him at a faster pace… "Say it: Blair."_

 _She complies, laughing, and minutes later when she draws close, she gasps his name again and he swiftly corrects her: "Say your own name."_

" _Blair."_

" _Tell me again." And again, and again, until she's gasping it unbidden, and so is he, and it's lost its playfulness and she's clinging against him, repeating it – and afterward, she sighs, and he asks for it one more time- "Again." She gives it to him, and he repeats it, with a deep, satisfied kiss:_

" _Blair."_

He chances it and reaches for her hand. The good one is near his chair. He covers it with his.

"Blair."

She looks over.

"Is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you need?"

Her bloodshot eyes move over his. Images file through his mind in organized, condensed segments: years of plotting and secrets and dry humor; months of bonding over parental betrayal; weeks of stolen kisses and indulgent trysts; hours of phone calls; long, lingering minutes of silent gazes, almost all of them in dimly lit rooms, hair disheveled, skin damp. Seconds, just seconds of-

"I need to die," she says finally, eyes steady on his. "Can you help me with that?" There's the slightest wryness in her tone, but not enough to make him comfortable.

He shakes his head.

"Next time you find me like that," she continues, "do me a favor and just leave me there."

Not for the first time today, his heart skips a beat – a burning, dangerous feeling.

Subtly, he releases her hand and goes to slide his away.

But she looks down and frowns, and with what looks like effort, moves her thumb over his hand and clasps it.

He stills.

She looks down for a long moment, then up slowly, and then at him for another long moment.

Silence stretches. Like in those dark rooms.

"You changed your sweater," she remarks finally.

"Yes."

She sighs. "That's good. Pink isn't really your color."

He smiles.

"I feel tired," she says. "I haven't slept today."

"Sleep. I'll stay here and make sure no one bothers you."

"Are you tired?"

"No," he lies.

And he tries not to be.

But they're left alone, and it's dark, and he knows the snow is fluttering behind him – he can turn to see it without letting go of her hand – and she's safe now: she has Serena to love her and her parents to protect her, and the NYPD to uphold the law, and him- well, she has him to, hopefully, be the one to get to the guy first. Hopefully by his reckoning, anyway.

And he puts his forehead down on her bed next to their clasped hands, like Serena's head found his shoulder, just to breathe, and the next thing he knows he's dozing, off and on, waking up what he expects is every fifteen minutes or so. Visions of twisted stockings, and headbands, and bare ankles crossed in the snow with the blushing pads of feet catching the fluttering flakes spin through his dreams, which are curiously shot in grainy black and white, like a Golden Age film or security camera footage, and when he wakes up, it's to Blair gasping her own name.

Immediately following that- breathy, satisfied, _Blair_ \- he's aware of a presence in the room.

She's still asleep beside him, but he knows there's someone else there, and he raises his head. The room isn't entirely dark – he supposes it's hospital policy to keep some auxiliary lighting on at all times.

His eyes adjust, and he sees who it is. He bites his jaws together, silently cursing Serena.

He gets to his feet, and her hand slides out of his.

She stirs at the loss of contact- _I don't want to be alone_ \- and looks up at him, taking a deep breath as she emerges to consciousness. "What-?"

She follows his gaze and physically jolts. Then winces.

The figure steps forward. "Blair…"

She releases the breath she's holding when she realizes it's Nate.

He, Chuck, puts his hands in his pockets.

"Blair- Serena told me you were here…" he trails off, looking from one to another. He doesn't look surprised to see Chuck, of course, but his eyes tick back and forth like the second pendulum on a clock. "I…" he takes another step forward, his blue coat black in the dark. "I'm so sorry- are you…" He runs a hand through his hair, looking miserably at her in the bed- undone hair, stitches, small inside her blanket. "Can I…" he looks at Chuck, eyes hard, like he's about to suggest Chuck step out so he can have time alone with her.

Blair's voice stuns them both. "Leave, please," she says to Nate.

"What?" His hair falls in his face.

"I'm not able to see you right now," she says, low and firm. "Please go home."

Another step forward, a hand coming up like he's going to reach for her. "Wait, can I just… I'm sorry…"

"Nate." Her voice stops him in his tracks. "I appreciate you visiting – I really do. But I'm not able to see you right now. I'll call you when I'm home and receiving visitors."

Nate's blue eyes slide to Chuck. _Receiving_ _visitors_? they seem to say, eyeing the chair he's just risen from.

He says nothing and manages with effort to keep his face blank as Nate's cold stare holds him.

"Please go, Nate," Blair tries again.

Nate steps back now, nodding, and turns and goes without another word.

The door clicks closed behind him, and his footsteps are gone almost immediately. Blair watches the door, but addresses him: "Can you make sure he doesn't come back?"

 _He_ _won't_ , he thinks, as he tells her he'll make sure.

She clears her throat a few moments later. "Should we find some food? Maybe we can order something. I've refused to eat hospital food all day."

He reaches for his phone. Four texts from Serena. He presses Ignore; no need to guess at their content. "I'll call Arthur."

"Let's ask the nurses find an extra bed for you- if you're… staying." Her voice tumbles awkwardly.

His thumb hovers over Send on Arthur's name as he looks up at her. "I'm staying, but I'm fine."

She gives him an _I'm Blair Waldorf_ look.

"You… what?" she muses, like she's waiting for him to answer. "Picked me up off the ground this morning? Brought me here? Made sure I didn't go through the worst day of my life alone?"

 _Please go, Nate._

He blinks rapidly, in time with his heartbeat.

Face still a caricature of thoughtfulness: "I think you've earned the privilege of not sleeping in a chair." A sad, fleeting smirk, which he mirrors without thinking. "For tonight, anyway."

iv.

She wakes throughout the night, flinching restlessly, gasping like someone's grabbing at her neck. Once or twice, a sharp murmur escapes from her stitched mouth.

He surfaces into consciousness every time. The bed they brought for him – she actually said "please" when she made the request – is drawn up a foot or two away from hers.

Hours before dawn, he's shaky with fatigue as the second night of next to no sleep sets into him.

"You should go home," she says beside him, and he turns in surprise. He thought he woke up on his own this time.

He clears his throat. Someone squeaks past in the hall; he sees her gaze dart up, un-blanketed right arm tense, and relax when the footsteps recede. She's playing brave now; he knows it on the instant. She'll retreat into her hard shell whenever she has the option.

That's fine. He can play braver.

"I'll stay until your parents come." He props himself on his elbow. She can only sleep on an incline, and really, the nurses keep saying, should be sleeping nearly sitting upright with two recent rib fractures. She looks down at him in the half-dimness.

"You don't have to. You'd sleep better at home."

In another moment- any other moment, really- he knows just what he'd say. It's on his tongue, a quip, a smirk, something about how anyplace next to her is more interesting, although he can think of things he'd rather they be doing that would help them both sleep. A wink, even, if she was in the right mood.

Instead, dry and flat: "The beds at The Palace are overrated. I actually prefer this mattress."

He flops onto his back, the picture of contentment. He doesn't have to look up to know she smiles a little.

"Used sheets do offer a certain alternative to thousand-thread-count combed cotton filled with down," she rejoins after a moment.

"Hay." He flicks the hand that's closest to her dismissively. She settles her head back against the top of her head rest, looking at the ceiling too.

This earns him an actual chuckle, one-syllable though it is: "Hmm." She takes a deep breath and lets it go slowly, apparently testing how far she can fill her lungs without pain. "So I expect you'll be looking well-rested in the morning."

Now he does smirk. "As much as you will, Waldorf."

He gives Arthur the rest of the day off in exchange for an early-morning, much earlier than a usual Chuck Bass errand, delivery of scrambled eggs. She insists she's not hungry, but inhales the plateful.

Medical professionals drift in and out; Annemarie comes back on duty late in the morning and, though she works downstairs, stops in to check Blair over, special attention in her question and gaze as Blair rubs at her eyes.

"Can I have something to help me sleep?"

"Just extra-strength Tylenol to reduce the swelling, I'm afraid," Annemarie apologizes. "We can't prescribe anything stronger."

"Maybe I'll sleep better at home," Blair tries. He's out of her line of sight, but he nods along, knowing she'll catch the movement. Lying, lying again.

Annemarie smiles reassuringly. The expression has become a familiar comfort in the last day or so. "Getting home is always the best thing." She pauses, noticing a bruise on Blair's left arm that's deepened – oblong, upper wrist. She turns her kind eyes back on Blair and tells her she'll be back later to check in, but to have the nurse on duty page her if there's anything she can do.

He's moved to the chair at Blair's left – the side with the forming bruise – during the nurse's visit, and Blair closes her eyes after Annemarie turns of the overhead light. The blizzard has stopped outside, at last, but clouds that look heavy and wet hang darkly over the city, a quiet danger, lurking, enticing.

"I slept better before he came," Blair says quietly.

He pauses. Certainly Nate's visit was unnecessary, even infuriating in its violation of privacy- he'd have words with Serena later- but that's not what's causing her trouble sleeping.

"He's not coming back," he offers, not sure what else to say.

She half-rolls her eyes, flicking them open momentarily. "Not that." Her left hand, a little away from her hip on the mattress, rolls away from her body, fingers opening from palm, palm facing heavenward.

A dozen more teases come to mind, but he fights them down- along with the urge to climb into the bed next to her and fall asleep, which he knows without doubt is the last thing he can do- and covers her flexed hand with both of his, pillowing three hands together.

"Just for a few minutes," she murmurs, half-timid. The same shyness he would feel at asking someone to do something inconvenient for him. "I can't stay awake."

"Don't."

She blinks. "Will you be able to sleep?"

Mouth corners turn up. "Even better than on the hospital bed."

Other than two intrusions by the on-duty nurse to check Blair's vital signs, they're both dozing, his head half-resting on their stacked hands, when Eleanor Waldorf's voice rings out in the corridor.

v.

He misses Arthur, he thinks glumly as he gets out of yet another cab. Cabs don't smell like expensive sandalwood sticks and shampooed leather. Cabs don't have temperature-controlled seats.

"Cabs don't have mini bars" would be his usual complaint, but his insides have stilled, oddly absent of thirst of any kind. Though he suspects Blair could use a drink right now, given the way her mother was caressing her like she was a toy poodle from the moment she swirled into the room. He almost didn't want to leave her with her parents – Harold barely able to speak, eyes wet and red-rimmed; Eleanor disheveled, voice louder than usual and crisp, completely at odds with her long, stroking touches on Blair's hair, her shoulders, palm constantly against her daughter's forehead, tucking and re-tucking her blankets – but two missed calls and a text from Andrew Tyler stating simply: _Call_ _me_ tugged him away.

And not a moment too soon. Another text buzzes against his fingers as he steps up on the curb outside The Palace.

His father. _See me when you're free. My office._

He's in the process of typing back that he'll be there shortly, gait slow in favor of multitasking, when he glances up and freezes.

Dan Humphrey is fifty feet away, also drifting to a stop. He's watching him.

And he knows.

Chuck slides his phone shut and pockets it, squeezing it too hard in his frustration.

For fuck's sake.

He continues toward Humphrey, fury at Serena's unreliability crackling at the edges of his vision. Dan lumbers forward, too, and they face each other at a few feet away. Dan's hands are in his pockets, shoulders slumped, eyes half-lidded as he takes in Chuck.

They look at each other for several long, long seconds, the sky heavy and foreboding above them. Dan shivers. He's blinking rapidly, which is not unusual, but his agitation is less… exuberant than normal.

Finally, Dan's throat shifts as he swallows a lump, and he shakes his head, mouth opening: "I…"

It whispers out of his mouth, a thin white wisp, and evaporates into the air, gone. The image is exactly what he's imagined Blair's last breath would have looked like if no one had found her. He watched that twist of translucent white furl into the air and then peel away to nothing several times last night.

Exactly why, location aside, her hand in his or not, he wouldn't have slept soundly either.

And he opens his mouth, too, and the words come without thinking, because someone did find her and someone did make sure she wasn't alone and now someone's going to do whatever is necessary. It's this simple: "If you tell anyone, I'll kill you."

Dan's nostrils flare, pink at the rims, and he rubs them as his nose runs, whether from emotion or cold is not clear. To his credit, he doesn't appear agitated or affronted. Or disbelieving. "I'm not going to tell anyone."

He steps around him, shoulders clearing by no more than an inch. "See that you don't."

Crossing toward the elevator bank, he glances absently into the bar and sees a mane of blond hair, long bare legs that could have only come from a home inside this building.

vi.

"Sir."

He always thinks about saluting when he greets his father this way, but has never tried it.

From the look on Bart's face, today is not the day.

"Charles." His father drops the quarter-inch file he's holding onto his desk with the careless grace of a Bass. Much as Bart might not like to point to their similarities, Chuck notes that Bart is also wearing grey cable knit, though his is a cardigan with elbow patches. A Saturday-afternoon-at-the-office-these-are-my-play-clothes outfit. Not that Chuck's own wardrobe is any less pretentious.

"Would you mind telling me what you're up to?"

He actually looks over one shoulder. "I'm just coming back…"

"It's my understanding you've been out the last two nights, which is hardly unusual, but Andrew Tyler got in touch to let me know you've retained his services."

"I'm sorry. Did you need him for something? I intended to pay him with my own savings. I didn't think to ask…"

His father's brow wrinkles. "Are you in some sort of trouble?" He almost looks amused, but there's a guardedness, a placidness, in his expression, like he's steeling himself for something. "I've never known you to ask Tyler's help with something." Nor, he no doubt is thinking, to not expect Bart to foot the bill for something serious.

"No. I'm not in any trouble."

 _She knows who's settling onto the tall chair next to her- corner seat, unusual- but they both face forward. He waits until the bartender- it's Stephen today- hands him his usual before he bothers to speak._

 _It takes effort not to growl the word. "Really?"_

 _He hears her swallow, but she hasn't touched her drink since he sat down. "I can't handle this on my own."_

His father blinks, blue eyes- different hue, but other than that the gaze is a mirror image- searching his son's face.

"What do you need Tyler for?"

 _He closes his eyes and takes a long sip. "_ You _can't? Forgive me. I didn't realize this was about you."_

" _It's not." Her teeth are clenched._

 _He sets his glass down, thick glass bottom clicking firmly against the polished mahogany._

He turns and closes Bart's office door behind him, then steps up opposite the broad desk, straightening his jacket.

"You know Blair Waldorf."

" _Anyone else?"_

 _She shakes her head and takes a mouthful, then two, of her drink, and for the first time he realizes what it is. He glances at her face in surprise. "Quad whisky? It's the middle of the day."_

 _There are white streaks on her face where she's let tears dry. "I'd rather not know what time it is, okay."_

Bart sits back in his chair, seemingly oblivious to his own shifting, as Chuck speaks.

" _I've never seen someone in so much agony as she was."_

 _Her fingers toy with the stout glass she's drinking from. This must be her first one; she's too upright on the stool, too coherent, for it to be anything else._

" _Just wordless, unspeakable- pain. And I couldn't be strong for her. And I couldn't do a thing about it. Watch," she runs a pinky around the rim, "as she struggled to keep herself together. I've never felt so helpless for someone else. For myself, sure. 'Serena's out of control,' 'Serena's off the rails' – my own mistakes, I can deal with the aftermath. I mean, that's half the point, right? Create messes. So someone has to notice. To see who yanks you back from the edge."_

 _She takes a sip, pacifies a grimace and turns a lopsided smile on him._

In a rare moment, his father is speechless. He clears his throat softly, like he needs to cough during a toast.

"Charles, I'm terribly sorry to hear this." His voice is low; his eyes are low. He's staring into the air above his desk.

"I thought Tyler could try to speed up whatever investigation the NYPD are doing. Help them with tips. We're always hearing how underfunded and understaffed these departments are…"

"He's all yours. He didn't go into detail when I spoke to him earlier, but it sounds like he's got something already."

"He said to call him, but I came here first."

Bart is shaking his head, not listening. "Poor thing. I just saw her over the holidays."

Chuck averts his eyes.

He also very narrowly missed seeing her leave The Palace one bright morning in December. Cheeks flushed, not from the cold. Not that that's relevant.

" _But not someone else's. Not hers. I told you, I'm terrible in a crisis." She crosses her legs the other way and tugs her sweater dress over her knees._

 _He takes another sip. "You were great yesterday. She was far better when you left than when you came."_

 _She pauses, drumming her fingertips on the side of her glass. "You knew all that time. About me and Nate. Why didn't you ever tell her?"_

 _He turns his head in surprise. "What?"_

" _You knew what Nate and I did. The whole time I was gone. Why didn't you tell?" She meets his eyes, expression slack like she's indifferent, but this sounds like something she's been wondering about for a while. "Almost a whole year you kept it in."_

 _He stares at her, then drains his glass. "Believe it or not, I don't enjoy hurting my friends."_

 _She seems unmoved by this. "You had no problem airing it when it hurt my relationship with Dan."_

" _You did that to yourself. You and Nate both, to yourselves. And to Blair. If anything, I kept your secret and let Nate carry on with it, with her, rather than devastating Blair and making her hate you both." He gets to his feet. "You're welcome, by the way."_

 _Her posture wobbles in defeat. Imploringly: "I'm sorry. Stay and have another with me."_

 _He nods heavenward. "I'm wanted upstairs." Bart's office is on the third floor; fifteen floors below his suite, eighteen below hers._

Still struggling for words, Bart dismisses him with a vague hand gesture. "Charles- " an afterthought as he turns to go- "I'll pay for Tyler."

"Really, I'm happy to- "

"I insist. I've known the Waldorfs for a long time- twenty years at least- and Blair since she was a baby. But it's gentlemanly of you to offer, and even more so to mean it." Bart gives him a nod, as tender as a stunned Bass can manage to be.

vii.

And Tyler does have something. More than something, in fact.

It's just circumstantial, but it dries his mouth with a thirst that there's only one way to quench.

Serena's still at the bar when he gets off the phone. She turns this time, wiping away a stray tear. "How'd it go?"

He smiles faintly. She doesn't want to know.

"Stephen," he says as the bartender reaches for another glass for him. "Quad whisky, please."

He slides Serena's glass away from its place in front of her and drains the last two mouthfuls in one continuous drink.

"Hot water with lemon for the lady." She opens her mouth to protest. "I need to catch up. And you need to sober up. In case she needs you."

She squeezes the lemon into her hot water, then pops the whole wedge into her mouth, rind and all. She licks the juice from her fingertips, in a way only she can without looking completely ridiculous. She blows at the steam coming from the cup, then puts it down. It's too hot.

"I owe her," Serena says finally. "All those years of friendship, and after what I did- I owe her, I owe it to her to be better than this when she actually needs me. And I couldn't. She forgave me and I keep thinking I'm stronger than I used to be, and when it comes down to it, I don't think I am."

She's definitely edging past tipsy; he wonders if she put a whole quad away while he was upstairs and this is her second. That, or she hasn't eaten.

"I'm just not there when she needs me. I'm not reliable. She deserves better than that."

He sips his whisky, watching his reflection in the mirror opposite the bar, between glasses of top-shelf alcohol.

 _The way she opened her fingers, baring her palm to him._

 _Just for a minute._

"I agree," he tells Serena. "She does. And that's why you're drinking water."

 _The chill of her toes against his shins, gray cashmere slipping over her shoulder._

 _Not like that- yet._

Serena touches the outside of her teacup, the surface of the water clouded with lemon juice, but it's still too hot. She frowns at it, disappointed. Pouting Serena and Overly Affectionate Serena are two spin-offs of Drunk Serena that he knows well.

As if on cue, she tilts her head and puts it on his shoulder again, hunched over the bar as he is, forearms flat, fingertips grazing the glass lazily. He doesn't so much as flinch. A great number of nights out in ninth grade ended up with her head on his shoulder due to her rather un-charming inability to self-regulate.

 _Curls loose against his arm, head under his chin._

 _Like this._

"You're right," she murmurs. Then: "Dan won't tell anyone."

He snorts. "Not his sister?"

She watches their reflection too. "Of course not."

He raises his eyebrows at the mirror. "I'm not sure I trust his judgment on doing what's best for her."

"Well." She smiles at that and sits up, swiveling in her seat, and picks up her hot water. "If you can surprise in that area, maybe he can, too." She holds out the cup, waiting for him to clink his against it.

He rolls his eyes at the prospect of drinking to any similarity he and Humphrey might have, but touches his glass to hers.

He's sure the NYPD haven't made as much progress as Tyler has. He's equally sure that none of them – not Nate, not Serena, definitely not Humphrey – has the burning desire to do what's _really_ best for her.

Now if he can just keep this from getting out any further than it already is. Minimize the damage from all angles.

The opposite of _Create messes. So someone has to notice._

"And maybe you can." He pauses, glass in midair. "Maybe you're not the girl you used to be."

There's a pause while she swallows the mouthful she has. She eyes him, smirk on her lips, and he thinks she's about to retort that he's certainly not the guy he used to be, who made messes to enjoy the destruction and kept no secret longer than it took for boredom set in.

She says: "Chasing whisky with hot water; I guess not."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I'm so thrilled to have gained some new readers last chapter! It's incredibly motivating and I'm really grateful to each and every one of you for taking the time to read and review. Merci, merci! I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. I really enjoyed writing it.**

 **I'm still working out how to write the dynamics of different characters as they interact one-on-one and in groups, so please hang with me while I get that down =)**

 _January 12, late evening_

i.

They move her home that night, late, after a long day at the hospital with innumerable- and, she guesses, extraneous- tests and checks and reviews of her chart. More blood is drawn, more lights shined in her eyes, more examinations of the swelling and stitches and cuts, and after a fraught exchange wherein Eleanor Waldorf screeches, somehow imperiously, that the medical professionals at Mt. Sinai are incompetent toads, Blair's father is supporting her as she's bundled into a discreet black town car wearing a pair of hospital scrubs that drown her small frame, hidden under a plush new robe from The Palace Hotel. Cinched at the waist.

Harold's overcoat is wrapped around her, reaching her shins. Her own coat was spirited off by the NYPD the day before: "Evidence."

She folds one slippered foot over the other, leaning her head against her father's shoulder, while her mother sits tautly at her side. Her head shakes back and forth, a minute, robotic movement. "Swine. I've never seen such a poorly run hospital."

Harold stifles his sigh, but Blair feels it. "Blair was born there."

"And it's gone decidedly downhill since then," Eleanor returns.

"Going home now," Blair murmurs, faintly. There's nowhere she can think of that she'd rather be less right now than this town car. "That's all that matters."

They're just a few blocks from the Waldorf penthouse. Dorota is at the curb, hands knitted together, face like stone. Eleanor is ushering everyone inside as quickly as possible, arms spread wide like wings as though shielding her daughter, while Blair leans on Dorota.

Their eyes meet. Blair's well with tears.

"Hi," she manages.

The last time Dorota saw her, she was buttoning her dark red coat, adjusting her headband, as she got in the elevator. _Storm is coming tonight, Miss Blair._

 _I'll be home long before then._

"Hello, Miss Blair." Dorota's eyes are large and wet too.

"Inside, inside," Eleanor hisses, throwing a look at the doorman, who scuttles away to call the elevator in time for their arrival.

Blair's belongings, down to her underwear, have indeed been located in the park, the charming wooded picnic area where she was left now roped off with yellow police tape. They're all evidence, of course- Blair's phone, turned back on just before 11 PM, activated but never used, its digital logs now the property of the NYPD- and nothing can be returned to her. The detective who visited Blair's room in the hospital, one of the two who came to take her statement the day before, was apologetic when he said they could not release her phone number.

"I'll get you a new phone today, my love," Harold murmured on the instant. And he's true to his word: a newly activated phone, exactly the same as her old one, is waiting for her on the foyer table, charged and ready to go.

She takes it in her good hand, remembering the way her last one lit up, a beacon, remembering how she threw herself chest-first into the freezing slush, the sinking in her stomach when the square of light disappeared dwarfing the sharp pain of the little bone in her hand that had just been snapped- she'd never find it in the dark, even if she got another chance-

Her jaw begins shaking even as her parents buzz around her, mother at twice the speed as father, Dorota still beside her, tears spilling over as she bites savagely on the side of her lip that isn't cut. "Please just let me go upstairs," she forces out, a sob breaking the sentence in half.

She catches sight of herself for the first time in over two days, when she looks in the mirror above her vanity, and she starts. "I look a mess," she whispers, but her mother, fussily digging out her usual slippers and searching for her own robe, hears and pounces:

"Darling, you look as beautiful as ever – I hadn't realized how thick your hair was, in fact; have you been taking extra vitamins? – just a shower and a night in your own bed, and you'll be feeling more like your old self again."

She's petting again, smoothing hair and patting at the shoulders of the white robe- Blair gave her father back his overcoat in the elevator- and her too-bright smile looks ready to snap. Blair watches them both in the mirror.

"Could you ask Dorota to assist me in the bathroom," she murmurs.

A muffled splutter. "I'd be happy to…"

"Please ask Dorota," she repeats. Dorota won't pet and lie.

When the steam billows up from the shower- how she wants a bath, but she can't with stitches- and Blair gasps a little as she jars her ribs shrugging out of the robe, Dorota wordlessly tugs it off her arms and tosses it behind them. Blair raises her arms, letting the loose blue scrub top be peeled off, tired of undressing but grateful it's in front of someone she knows this time, and unties the string of the pants. She's wearing nothing underneath, and she's forgotten about her injuries in her exhaustion, and only realizes later that Dorota doesn't squeal and exclaim, just hands her into the shower and closes the door behind her.

And she knows without asking that Dorota won't leave. Dorota never leaves her. Never.

"Dorota," Blair says as she wets her hair under the hot stream.

"Yes, Miss Blair?"

"I want to sleep in long pants and a sweater tonight, please."

Dorota barely misses a beat at the unheard of request for anything other than a nightgown or chemise, or at the very least a silk short set, for sleep attire. "Of course, Miss Blair."

ii.

It's true. He's not sleeping well, as he knows he wouldn't have last night, startling images created by his own mind plaguing his every attempt.

Actually, he's not sleeping at all.

And tonight, the images are not created by his own mind. Not entirely.

He thought, after two quad whiskys – well, two and a quarter, counting the last of Serena's that he polished off – and another two Scotches back in his suite, that he'd be able to fall asleep early after the past few nights and days. But there he is, muscles twitching in fatigue, staring at his ceiling.

For the dozenth time in the last hour, he places his hand palm-down, fingers splayed, on the file folder on his bedside table. Drags it toward him. It's open now. He's not even bothering with the pretense of closing it in between.

The pictures inside dull his heartbeat to a low, burning throb, because they could be her.

 _They aren't,_ he reminds himself. _They aren't._

A slight, slim brunette, waist a bit deeper of a curve- slightly more curvaceous through the hips- hair as dark, maybe a little longer. Pale skin too, hands slightly larger, fingers slightly more graceful.

 _They aren't._

"It didn't seem likely that it could have been a first offense," Tyler had said.

No.

Too smooth.

Rohypnol in her drink. And pretty bold- a public place, even during a storm.

A schemer himself, he had to agree. It was likely the guy had done this before.

"And?"

The girl was pretty. Quite pretty. Maybe eighteen or so- one of the details Tyler didn't want to tell him.

Smaller nose, smaller mouth. Those eyelashes and eyebrows could almost be hers.

They aren't, though.

He's rubbed the pad of his index finger over the top left corner of the photo he's holding so many times that it's curled and creased and lost its starch.

This girl's bloody bruise mark is in the middle of her torso, where her ribs meet in front, almost centered on her body.

His eyes had flicked to Tyler.

"Kicked," Tyler had said shortly. "She was on hands and knees. Probably trying to get away."

He'd swallowed down the lump in his throat.

"Close to her diaphragm," he'd managed. "That can kill you."

Tyler had paused. "Unfortunately for her, it did not."

Two broken wrists on this girl, bent at odd angles, but her graceful hands intact. One knee also bent oddly, in another photo, slim calves photographed on their own that could almost be hers-

But they aren't.

Dark hair; hers isn't wet. Waves of it. It's not as glossy, though, not quite as full.

He looks again at her eyelashes, the curve of her jaw, the splotches of fingermarks on her neck, and wonders if anyone was looking for her.

If anyone was bad to her that night. If her friends were calling each other- is she with you?- if you see her, or hear from her…?

If anyone was fucking a stranger when they should have been trying to figure out where she was. If anyone was putting their own temporary pleasure above whether finding out if she was okay.

 _They aren't the same girl._ He shakes himself. _They aren't the same girl._

He imagines Blair's ribs being kicked. A crack. Two cracks, actually- ribs seven and eight.

His heart tightens in his chest.

He tells himself to put the photos down and turn off the light.

They aren't the same girl.

But instead he flips through them, again, wondering if the eyes are brown.

They're closed, forever- so he'll probably never know.

"The NYPD will find this?" he'd asked Tyler.

"Sure will. I'll tell them first, but they'd find it on their own. It doesn't take much. All I did was run a search for previous violent offenders that had been paroled in the last ninety days." He'd shrugged, the gesture regretful. "There are less than you might think."

Chuck's jaw had twitched. "Good behavior, was it?" But it's not really a question.

This girl was outside, too, but in an industrial park on the waterfront. In Boston.

He pauses on the photo that shows her lower thighs, the space above her knees. The purpose of the photo is to show the bent knee, a bit puffy, its sac of fluid where a tendon ruptured obvious from the angle of the photo.

She's wearing a skirt, but no stockings. It was autumn then, Tyler tells him. Autumn: the magic of a suddenly cool breeze, the promise of newness after a stifling summer. Sweat cooling. Leaves turning, falling, drifting like snowflakes, settling.

Her neck is bent, but not broken. She must have been wearing a jacket, but it's not photographed. One ear is close to her shoulder, like she's listening, waiting, her head tilted downward because she's looking at someone in the dark.

He wonders if anyone ever told her that she's a work of art.

If she murmured a laugh, eyes closing, in response.

He looks, again, at the closed eyelashes. He can almost imagine her laugh. Although it's not imagining, really, because he just thinks of Blair's laugh.

 _But they aren't the same._

He and Tyler had stilled over the last picture in the stack, Tyler withdrawing his hand to rest it on the back of the pushed-in chair between his body and the counter where they'd laid them out and looked them over, one by one.

It was then that he'd needed a drink.

"Drugged?"

Tyler had cleared his throat. "Lethally."

"How long was she awake… do they know?"

"According to what I found, the coroner thought she'd struggled through most of the assault, hence the extent of her injuries. But once she was out… "

Her carriage is graceful; soft-sloping trapezius, graceful neck, birds-wing collarbones. All of it fit to be kissed and touched and appreciated.

There are deep bite marks on her left shoulder. He's not sure how many- can't tell; the biting looks to have been done in a frenzy- but more than one. Stark purple against pale, like scattered buds of tiny flowers, if one unfocused one's gaze.

Blair's flawless slant of a collarbone in his grey cashmere sweater – what he's still wearing when he's looking at the photos – burns into him, and he hates himself, hates himself then, fire engulfing his heart, because he doesn't think he's ever kissed her collarbone.

And _they aren't the same_ , _they aren't the same_ , but staring at that last, terrible picture in the stack, he sees how very close to being the same they were.

"Left her like that?"

A pause. "Yes." He'd heard Tyler swallow next to him. "But she was already out when he did it. They know that for sure."

As if that helps.

 _They aren't the same._

From hip to hip, below the soft curve of her waist, the lowermost depths of the letters grazing her pelvic region, where her skirt has been tugged down to make room.

WHORE.

The last thing he'd done before he left this girl to die.

They aren't the same, no.

But they almost were. And, he'd realized when his blood calcified into a physical desire to kill, truer than any longing, or lust, or loathing that he'd ever felt, looking at that last picture when Tyler turned over the one on top of it, that the older man was right to refuse to tell him the guy's name.

Because _they_ _aren't_.

But it had been his intention that they would be.

Iii.

The Upper East Side is the world's runaway capital for luxurious Sundays – long brunches with mimosas on mimosas, naps in one's polished mahogany windowseat, lazy afternoon tea with cucumber sandwiches and clotted cream and honey on every hot bite of scone.

And as people true to their roots, Manhattan's elite soldier on whether or not a blizzard has shut down their schools and businesses and wiped out power for half of their neighbors in the boroughs, including parts of southern Westchester and the Bronx, most of Brooklyn, all of Staten Island, Jersey City and northeast Queens.

After all, people on the Upper East Side would never be so careless as to live without generators.

Those who are brave venture out; the Plaza, the Four Seasons, are packed houses. Hot cider spiked with bourbon, brandy and rum; smoked salmon omelettes; shrimp scampi with pickled ginger alongside steak tartare to start; Earl Grey cocktails served in decadent teapots, eight cups to a round, with fresh mint infusion and lemon zest on top to finish, produced in real time on gold graters by murmuring white-gloved waitresses.

Those who are not brave stay in, ordering their brunches direct to their beds or formal dining room tables, lounging the hours away reading The Sunday Times, beginning the crossword with strict diligence and drifting, after an hour and a few cups of something hot, instead toward the fashion page, the arts page, the society page, families splitting up the sections, salt-and-pepper fathers snatching up the business section and handing their immaculate wives the rest of the stack, while spaniels and retrievers loll on the carpet along with small children, stir crazy and eager to run about screaming, tired of being restricted to playing indoors and badgering their parents to let them go sledding in the park.

And those who are neither brave nor not brave; those who feel they have lost their way, and those who aren't sure they know what way is up anymore, wake late from a long night of sleeping in short, shallow spurts, stomach acidic with nerves; lock themselves in their room, avoiding the mirror; and slowly, unwillingly, open their laptops.

And refresh Gossip Girl.

Digging fingernails that Annemarie clipped into tissue paper for the rape kit- short, unfiled, awkwardly square- into her palm, begging anyone who might listen to her prayers that this hasn't leaked.

iv.

"Blair! Blair, darling!"

Her mother's voice is too high, too loud, too delighted.

She closes her eyes.

Eases herself off her bed.

The lock, a delicate deadbolt with a curved brass handle, resists a little, and she suddenly hopes it will stick and she won't be able to come out. No such luck.

She cracks the door and calls back down the hallway. Her mother sounds to be in the foyer or maybe on the stairs.

"Yes, mother?"

"Come here, please, darling!"

She sighs. She's not meant to be going up and down stairs. She's actually supposed to be on bed rest.

But her mother seems close to a nervous breakdown, and has already knocked twice on her locked door, eyes frantic each time Blair opened it, so it seems best to not ruffle her.

She reaches the top of the stairs before the familiar male murmur reaches her ears. She heard it moments before, but didn't pay enough attention to realize it was not her father.

She has to lean on the railing, pressing her palm in, to shift her weight and carefully descend each step, and he hears her and turns.

She stills. "Nate."

The polite smile on his face falls away; he sees her awkward posture and the grimace she's too startled to hide. "Blair, I…"

"What are you doing here?" She strains to keep her voice even.

Eleanor gestures proudly to him. "Nate called to check in and see how you were doing, and I thought it might cheer you up to see him. Your father and I will go out for a cup of coffee. You two should spend some time together."

Blair's heart sinks.

Nate is already stepping up the stairs, pausing on the landing, while her parents- Eleanor with a satisfied, if too-tightly-wound, smile and Harold with a searching sideways look at his daughter- get into the elevator, Dorota pushing their coats at them and then disappearing through the kitchen.

And they're alone.

Nate watches her carefully. "I'm sorry," he says, "when I called, I was just wanting to see if you were okay, and home, and your mother started talking a mile a minute about how you wanted some company, and asked if I could come over." He breaks off. Pauses. "I thought she meant you were asking for me, or… sitting there nodding or something."

She smiles a little at that. "No. She was just being herself."

He backs up a step, almost against the wall. "Do you want to come down, or… should I go home?"

"Best not to foil her plans." The words are a little clipped, but she supposes she should remember that he's sought her out not once, but twice. And she is in no position to refuse kindness. "I'm supposed to be on bed rest."

His eyes widen a little in alarm. "Bed rest? I thought you were going to be fine…"

"I am."

They stare at each other, a decade or more of history flying between them, not just the last year and Serena and the tension and pressure but all the ones before that, first hand holding and first kiss, first days of school and summer breaks and Christmas gifts and more Sundays together than either can remember, coordinating outfits and straightening his tie before dinners, compliments and terms of endearment, and _them_.

His eyes rake over her, not an inch of exposed skin other than hands and face, in an oversized turtleneck and long slim lounge pants, all blue, with blue socks on her feet.

"Come on up." And she turns and leans on the railing, finding it much harder to go up than down.

He watches, taking in her stiff, short movements, as she gets back into bed, pushing her closed laptop across her bed. "Can I help?"

"I'm fine."

She pulls the comforter back over her lap.

After a pause, he pulls over the chair from her vanity and settles himself on it. He's never sat there before; never, not in his probably hundreds of times in this room. He's always settled on the edge of her bed, or in it, but never there. That's where she sits to preen and plot. To scheme. To raise her sparkling eyes in the mirror at the reflection of the person pacing behind her, hands behind back, working his way through whatever obstacle sits in his or her way. Or to be the one pacing, toying with a curl, fingers of one hand tucked thoughtfully into the opposite elbow, and meet the eyes glittering back at her from that very chair.

She's seen Chuck there- many times, but never Nate.

Nate swallows, very slowly, looking her over, and she remembers the stitches on her lip and cheek that have become such a part of her in the last two days that she's almost forgotten about them.

"What happened to you?" he asks, low, above a whisper.

It hits her then that he doesn't really know.

"What did Serena tell you?"

"That you were at the hospital. And you'd been hurt. And your room number."

So. Serena hadn't completely lost her sense of intelligence, then.

"I…"

It dies on her lips.

"I was hurt. That's true."

His eyes rake over her again, a darkness in them that she isn't familiar with.

His nostrils flare. "Who hurt you?"

"Leave it alone." He misses the way her voice wavers, the raw edge that lurks just under the paper-thin flatness of the words.

Confusion wrinkles his brow. "'Leave it alone'? You're on bed rest with stitches on your face, and you want me to leave it alone? Who did this to you?"

She doesn't want the concern, the protectiveness, written all over his face. It doesn't take much for her to lose control right now; she's grasping onto threads of it with her fingertips as it is. "Nate, the time for you to be my hero is long gone. You and I both threw it away, me when I forced us to be something we weren't long after it was clear it would never be that, and you when…" She stops herself and clears her throat, averting her eyes. "It doesn't matter. So please, leave it alone now."

He moves over to sit on the edge of the bed, reaches for the hand that's resting on the far side of her body, on top of the comforter- and snatches his fingers back when he glances at it and sees how swollen and purple it is. He looks back up at her, eyes narrowed.

Without a word, she places it back down and unearths her good hand from underneath the comforter.

He cradles it in both of his, bringing her knuckles to his lips.

The way she's always loved.

"I know I'm not your hero," he whispers. "I know I've screwed up. I know we both have, but it was mostly me, and me that started it, and I know that. But I still care about you. It feels terrible to see you like this. Please, just… let me care?"

A long silence.

She curls one side of her mouth upward, chagrinned: "I suppose I can allow you the honor of caring."

He breaks into a handsome grin- there's the Blair he knows, at least a glimmer of her- and kisses her knuckles one more time.

"But I really can't…" she shakes her head. "I can't talk about that. Truth be told, I don't remember everything, but I can't talk about it."

He pauses and nods. "Can you at least tell me why you're on bed rest?"

She looks into his blue eyes. Honorable- well, not perfectly honorable- Nate, the white knight. Her eyes well up when she thinks of what he'd say if he saw her leg.

"Blair, what?" He squeezes her hand when he sees the tears. "Does something hurt?"

"No- no." She blinks the fullness from her eyes and, mercifully, it doesn't spill out. "I'm on bed rest because I have two broken ribs," she offers.

His mouth tightens again. "How did you…" He cuts off, angry. Breathes out.

Pats her hand.

"Okay. I'll stop asking. What do you want to do? Do you want some company? I'm free all day."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her laptop. Gossip Girl was clean- no mention of her, this. No new posts at all, actually, since Thursday.

Not that Thursday had been a great day for Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl.

But she'd been intending to continue searching, making sure no breath of her had made it anywhere onto the internet, God forbid, anywhere else- maybe even think about sending in a fabricated tip of some kind herself, even something good-natured, to divert attention- though she'd probably need Chuck's help in creating the perfect lie, the combination of plausible and juicy-

"Want to watch a movie?" Nate asks, seeing the way she's eyeing the machine. He brightens, alighting on something he's sure she'll love: "Tiffany's?"

She actually lets out a snort of laughter, followed by a wince and a frown at the pinch in her side, at his delighted expression. "Good God, Archibald, it's not my last day on earth. I don't need you to pretend to want to watch Audrey movies with me."

He smiles back, easing into the sound of her laughter, though he glances at the way she presses her hand on her ribs.

"Oh, go get the paper," she flaps a hand. "You can have the sports section. I'll take society."

He'll think it's so she can catch up on the latest, she knows; he won't realize she's looking for any drop of anything related to herself.

"Crossword?" He raises his eyebrows as he gets to his feet.

The crossword takes forever.

"Why not."

She'd rather be with Nate than her mother.

v.

At some point, between phone calls with Tyler and checking his phone almost pathologically- she texted him late last night with her new number-

" _Blair's new number."_

" _Chuck's old number."_

 _(And he'd hoped it her made her smile.)_

-and Serena had been batting messages back and forth with him all day-

" _Have you eaten?"_

" _Scotch count?"_

" _Come have brunch with us."_

" _I have cocktail olives here, thanks."_

" _Come on. Shouldn't be alone right now."_

" _Miss my last text? Not alone. Olives."_

-and in the end she succeeded in dragging him downstairs, knocking at his door like a machine gun firing, yelling his name like a mother searching for a lost toddler in Times Square, and what choice did he really have, given she knew he was in there?

And _that_ was a pleasant brunch; his father working, catching up from having missed his usual rounds on Friday due to the storm; Erik aware, and Lily less aware but vacantly conscious, that Chuck and Serena had some secret topic on their minds. Bart Bass was a loyal fiancé, but he was a stalwart secret keeper, and had dutifully not let a word of it slip. So unless Serena blew it- again- they were in the clear, but their constant fidgeting and phone-checking aroused Lily's teasing, then a little suspicion; with Erik, it was all dark curiosity, eyeing his sister, her dark circles and bloodshot eyes and the absence of her usual grace. Chuck sees it too, and their eyes connect briefly in acknowledgement, and he knows that Erik will keep his mouth shut.

" _Stop texting so much."_

" _You stop texting."_

" _You're on your phone every other second."_

" _Who's texting whom right now? I'm working on something."_

" _Can't it wait?"_

" _Not really. Distract your mother. Talk about decorating the marital penthouse."_

She kicked him under the table then, but a minute later, when a sparkling Lily is waist-deep in bubbling about how she's always dreamed of a celadon-and-ecru color scheme for her master bathroom, including a giant copper clawfoot tub, and imagine her _delight_ when her future husband surprised her by saying he thought the idea was flawless one, the text vibrates in his inner pocket- he deliberately put on a jacket with a low interior pocket, so he can make less of a show of pulling out his phone every time-

And Tyler has come through for him again.

" _I have the surveillance photos. Gallery was useless, low-res, but embassy came through for us. Waiting on the other gallery."_

He feels, actually feels, heat rise from his chest up his neck and settle in hot, dark splotches high on his cheeks. He fights to cool himself down and reaches for his ice water.

" _And?"_

Thank God he can type without looking.

He's crunching on ice, trying to breathe normally and listening to a detailed explanation about how rain-head showers are really only appropriate for people who style their own hair, although they do offer a certain immersive shower-time experience, and that's nothing to turn one's nose up at; it may make sense, though, to install three different shower heads: one rain-head; one handheld; and one traditional spray, because really, it all depends on one's plans that day, and with the busy lives we all lead-

When his phone, still open to the same conversation, buzzes softly against the top of his leg where it's perched.

He glances down, mid-crunch.

" _Looks like our guy."_

Everything else blurs to white. He's alone in a white vacuum, and Blair's broken, lifeless body is there, like so many other visions he's had, but this one achingly, desperately real, because he's seen all of it. Bruised ribs, bruised juncture of ribs. Broken wrists, broken hands. Broken knee. Torn lip, torn cheek, bite marks across her flawless shoulder and the collarbone he never got to kiss. And on her thigh, and on her hips, and there- carved down her spine, across her iliac crest, into the flesh of both calves, the soles of her soft bare feet, her forehead, the expanse of flawless skin above the swell of her breasts, deep into the veins of her arms, the depth of the cut opening her veins, so that even as she bleeds she affirms it-

WHORE. WHORE. WHORE. WHORE. WHORE. WHORE. WHORE. WHORE. WHORE. WHORE-

"Charles?"

He glances up, realizing only then that his forehead is perspiring. He's sweating all over, actually, but he can feel actual droplets on his forehead.

Lily looks at him in concern. "What on earth- are you ill, dear?"

He finds his voice, raggedly: "No. I'm sorry, will you excuse me?"

"Stay for a few minutes." Serena flips his unused teacup upright and tosses in a lemon wedge that garnishes her fruit plate. "Drink this."

He throws her a dark look, safe in the knowledge that Lily is glancing around for a waiter to refill his water. Her poor feverish future stepson might be coming down with something.

The wait staff generally buzz around him like he's a prince- which in this hotel, he is- so she has no trouble flagging someone down.

Serena matches the grave look he gives her. "So we know you're okay," she finishes coolly, finishing pouring the hot water with a flourish.

Erik watches this whole display with flat eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure what's come over me," he lies, trying a smile at Lily. Lily is not stupid. He needs to not act like a Neanderthal. "Now, have you thought about the color tile you'd want? Ecru may not age well, depending on the material you use."

She taps a finger on nothing, pointing at him as though to say he has a point. "I've thought about that. Some people do a double or triple coat of sealant if the tile is more porous, but to me that just defeats the purpose; on the other hand, though, there is something to be said for utilizing a rougher, less perfectly finished material- it gives sort of an unfinished, less curated look, which…"

And he's back in business.

" _How quickly can you get here?"_

It's already 2 PM. Brunch is an all-day affair at The Palace; they'll still be here in two hours starting cocktails and mulling the charcuterie offerings if he doesn't make some excuse as to why he needs to get away.

" _What's going on?"_ Serena again. He glances at her; apparently she can text without looking too.

" _I'm working on something."_

" _Blair-related?"_

That's enough of that conversation. He swipes her text away.

" _Going to NYPD now. I can be there around 4."_

" _Done."_

"What about," he says to Lily, "a celadon-and-copper checkered tile pattern? Vintage-style checkering, so a nod to the clawfoot's historical origin; copper as an accent won't overwhelm or distract from the tub. You could do the shower-heads and other fixtures in copper against ecru for the vanity, with celadon walls."

The whole table is staring at him.

Lily's delight is apparent in every fiber of her being. "Why, Charles! I had no idea you had such exquisite taste."

Serena narrows at her eyes at him. "Do you even know what color celadon is?"

He smirks at her. "It's like seafoam, but more muted," he says, as though she just asked him whether SoHo is south or north of Houston. Turns his smile back on Lily, indulgently narrowing his eyes. "And far more chic."

Lily clasps her hands together. "My thoughts exactly."

Erik rakes a hand through his hair. "Dear God," he says under his breath. "Now there are two of them."

Serena hears and stifles a guffaw in her throat.

When her mother excuses herself to use the ladies' room, Serena cocks her head. "Since when are you interested in interior design?"

"'Interested' is a strong word," he replies blithely. "I live in a hotel. How many times do you think it's been redone since I've been here?"

She chuckles good-naturedly. "And what, you helped?"

"'Helped' is also a strong word. I was bored a lot as a child…"

Buzz.

Nate.

He clicks it too eagerly.

" _We need to talk."_

"Okay," Erik says hotly, and he looks up to see he's glancing between the two of them. "Who's going to tell me what's going on?"

"Nothing," Serena says, at the same time that Chuck replies, "Neither of us."

Serena glares at him.

He rolls his eyes. "He's not an idiot. He's not going to believe nothing's going on."

"Thank you," Erik replies, looking pointedly at his sister.

"But it's not for you to know yet," Chuck continues, meaning: not ever.

"Is everything okay?"

He glances at the gilded clock on the opposite wall: less than 90 minutes until Tyler arrives.

"It will be."

Erik doesn't seem convinced. Serena's eyes are downcast, her shoulders slumped. Erik looks back and forth.

"I promise," he insists, smiling at Lily as she nears, fitting the words through his pleasant expression: "Trust me."

Like good Upper East Siders, they stay at the table until they finish every drop of everything they have, with Lily, the perfect queen of society (fitting, really, for the future wife of the King of Manhattan), knowing exactly when to delicately shake her head at the wait staff to indicate they don't need refills any longer. Every bit of orange juice is drained from the carafe; the jug of ice water left at Lily's request, gone, with Lily commenting in genuine relief that Charles looks much better- "Just a passing sensation; maybe I bit down on a peppercorn," he assures her- and Serena has eaten at least three chocolate croissants by the time they rise from the table.

They near his floor, and Lily muses: "I think you're quite right about the tile, Charles. I'm going to have my designer put together a mock-up. I'd love to get your opinion on it."

"I'd be honored," he tells her, seeing the round buttons of the elevator illuminate in rapid succession: 14, 15, 16-

"And a word of advice." 17. "It might be best to make sure the clawfoot has a center drain and faucet, rather than the usual position on one end. Especially if you're planning on taking two-person baths."

18\. The elevator slows.

Lily blushes, but her laugh is genuine. It fills the small space of the elevator, leaving room for nothing else but joy.

Serena shuts her eyes, face twisting into a cringe.

The doors open with a ding.

"Good God," Erik murmurs again, but he's shaking with laughter too.

"Just being considerate," Chuck points out, concealing his own smile with effort. It feels good to be Chuck Bass in these moments. He gives a nod as he steps out. "Van der Woodsens."

"Charles." Lily nods back as the doors shut, still blushing beautifully, with Serena's eyes closed beside her, shaking her head and forcing the laugh down- he can see it, knows it- all dark thoughts gone, just for a moment.

vi.

And it's a good thing, because Tyler's visit brings them all back up. Tenfold.

The camera footage from the other gallery is fine, but doesn't offer anything new. It's really the embassy that seals it.

They can see the guy's face- it's not a perfect photo by any means, but it's clear who they're looking at; could easily match him by sight to another photo- tall, handsome, strong brow and nose; softer around the jaw and cheekbones. Good-looking in an obvious sort of way. And there, on the other side of him, is Blair. Headband in place, lips full and unstitched, profile aglow in its paleness against the nondescript grayness of night vision footage.

Expression blank, but not miserable, not twisted, not aware. Not aware of what's about to happen to her. Not aware of who she's standing next to.

He looks into Tyler's face. "Tell me his name now, please."

"I've told the NYPD," Tyler says by way of refusal.

"I'm asking you," Chuck grinds out evenly, "to tell me."

"I can't do that. The deal was we work to help the NYPD nail this guy…"

"What difference does it make?"

Tyler sighs a little. "I see how affected you are by this. We need to let justice take its course. And it will. I don't want you to do anything rash."

"I'm not rash," Chuck lies, even though he's considering strangling Tyler if he continues to withhold it.

The older man just blinks back at him, eyes tracking his clenched jaw, his taut shoulders.

"I'll tell my father not to pay you," he tries desperately.

"Your father agreed it was in your own best interest not to know his name." Chuck bites his tongue furiously. "This isn't his first time to the races."

"I'll find out on my own," he murmurs.

"Just try and let that part go. It's being handled." Tyler pulls a laptop out of his briefcase. "I have something else to show you. One of the galleries gave me a long run of their surveillance footage, starting much earlier than the time they left the bar, and I reviewed it, thinking we might see him approach the bar, or God forbid, even follow her there, and maybe we could trace where he came from."

He blinks. "And?"

"No dice there," he says as he opens it, and the black screen comes to life, a black-and-white Blair on it, from the knee up. "But."

Tyler glances at him, and presses Play.

She's crying.

 _When she first came in, she was crying._

He grabs the sides of the laptop, tugging it closer. Tyler flinches back at the movement, probably deciding he was right in not giving Chuck the guy's name.

Whatever.

She pulls off a glove, wiping desperately at her eyes, but she can't stop. This isn't a few tears. She's _crying._

He looks behind her, and yes- she's on the corner of Madison, just having walked away from the curb where she'd been standing the last time he saw her.

Before _Hi, you._

"Just standing there," Tyler comments. "Maybe deciding what to do- whether to go home."

 _Probably replaying being told she's not beautiful or wanted, actually,_ he thinks. He glances at the time stamp.

Sure enough: 9:42:26 PM 10 JAN.

She looks around again, embarrassed suddenly, and puts her glove back on, facing away from the street to minimize the chance of being seen.

Facing, unknowingly, almost directly into the camera.

But her face crumples again.

He pushes the laptop away.

"I get the idea," he says through clenched teeth.

Tyler nods and packs it up. "Things will move rather quickly now. Rather than running DNA samples through literally hundreds of databases- I won't bore you with the lack of technological integration in our penitentiary system- given this tip, they'll hopefully be able to match him with her quickly."

His eyes shift up to meet Tyler's. "And what happens then?"

Pause. "They find him and lock him up forever." Another pause. "At least."

"I see." He looks toward the door, subtly signaling Tyler to go. "Thank you. Please keep me informed."

After Tyler goes, he stands at the door he's just chained shut, those images flicking through his mind again- blinking them away, clenching his hands, trying to think of anything else, celadon and ecru and copper and omelettes and Scotch and Blair's laugh and Serena's laugh and Erik's laugh and Lily's warm words, her loving maternal behavior, and hot water with lemon- anything else- and nothing covers it this time.

He's hitting the wall before he even realizes what he's doing. "Fuck," he growls at it.

Harder. "Fuck." It hurts this time.

He keeps at it. "Fuck- fuck - fuck…" One punch for every word. He feels his knuckle split, one, and then the other, and loves it, because the smarting finally distracts him, but as soon as he realizes he's distracted, he remembers from what, and then-

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

He smacks his forehead against the wall. "Fuck!"

His blood is on his own wall now, and when he imagines what she's gone through, because he can't stop seeing it, and worse- what it was intended to be- he strikes it over and over again, red splotches turning into a pattern, dappling the area next to his coat closet, until he's sweating, fully now- hair wet, a bead quivering on his neck, his collar damp- and he leans his head against it again, an actual growl- wordless, low, murderous- coming out, as he bites back tears.

"Oh, God." He's close to crying. He sees her face crumpling around the corner from where he saw her last. Unable to hold it in. "Oh, God," he whispers miserably on an exhale.

And it's silent.

He catches his breath, which he didn't realize was bellowing in and out.

When he quiets, there's a tentative two knocks on the door.

He turns his head, forehead still against the wall, knuckles bleeding properly now, and looks at the door; the sliver of light coming in from underneath.

He doesn't bother checking who it is. He doesn't care. There's not a single person he cares to pull himself together for now, except maybe her, and it's not her. She wouldn't knock like that.

He yanks the door open halfway, light from the hallway flooding the dim entry to his suite.

Blue eyes- a hard, impassive face- a navy peacoat.

Nate's glaring, but not at him.

He's obviously been standing there more than ten seconds. Eyes roving slowly, thoughtfully, he takes in the blood-spotted wall; Chuck's ragged appearance, breath hot on his lips; sees the blood on the knuckles that curl around the door's edge, holding it open, once he sees who it is.

Nate swallows. Nods. "Me, too."

Chuck heaves a deep sigh, steps back, and beckons him in with one careless swipe of his bloody hand. Nate chains the door shut after them.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I'm BEYOND thrilled that my readers are enjoying! It's incredibly inspiring to hear from you. Thank you so, so much for your messages, reviews, follows and favorites. =) I will strive to keep earning your readership!**

 _January 13_

i.

 _Late evening_

The machines are already whirring, conveyors spinning black and white ribbon like the spools behind a florist's counter.

A rare week when everything comes off without a hitch.

But a large rectangular bulletin board, laid lengthwise on a frame in the corner of a cubicle-fitted room many stories above, wants to change that. Begs to.

A spread of photos and hastily written copy- peer-reviewed; there was no time to get someone else- covers it like puzzle pieces, pinned in place with thumbtacks in assorted colors. Haste has dispensed of perfect presentation; this looks more like a first-round mock-up than a last call for tweaks.

Smiling, a young brunette and her beautiful blonde friend grace one; the same dark curls brush the shoulder of a dashing young man in a navy school blazer in another.

An index finger taps the edge of the board absently. "Do we have time?"

"We've already had the plates remade."

In case.

The people tending the machines in the deafening room far below have been warned there might be a last-minute change after all.

ii.

 _Earlier_

Nate pulls out a chair from the bar while Chuck pours them each a Scotch.

Watching him pick up his glass, Nate nods at the bloody knuckles. "Shouldn't you clean that or something?"

He glances down as though Nate's just bringing this to his attention. He pauses, then picks up the bottle of Scotch and turns it sideways, hand over the sink, letting the expensive liquor pool over his open wounds. The sting is oddly soothing.

Nate cringes. "Dude."

He shrugs, putting the bottle down and picking up his glass with his other hand. "It's alcohol."

"I saw her today," Nate says after a long silence. "Spent the afternoon with her."

His gaze twists up to the blue eyes. "How is she?"

Nate's quiet again.

People have to stop doing that.

Nate opens his mouth and then hesitates. "Man," he says seriously, "what happened to her?"

"What?" The hand holding his glass twitches at the wrist, a would-be incredulous gesture.

"She told me Blair had gotten hurt and her room number and which hospital. I saw that she has stitches and she said she has two broken ribs. And that she doesn't want to talk about it." His fingertips play on the rim of his glass. "I haven't gotten anything more than that."

They hold each other's gaze.

Chuck's jaw flexes; he sees Nate's do the same.

"I know you know," Nate says, quietly.

He blinks. "You know, too."

Nate breaks the stare first. "Yeah." He drains his glass and holds it out for more. Chuck pours without looking. This is a well-practiced routine; drinking and talking, Chuck playing barkeep while Nate stands in as the philosophical patron. They rarely switch roles. Nate brings the glass back to his mouth, eyes on the bottom of his glass as he tilts it up. "Yeah, I think I do," he murmurs, lower lip on the rim, before drinking.

"So," he tries again after a slow sip, "how is she?"

"I've seen her worse, but different." Nate looks at the cupboards behind him, not at him. "She just wanted to read the paper and do the crossword. She's on bed rest."

A little while later, Nate clears his throat awkwardly. "I know we never talked about you guys…"

He chuckles. "We did, a little."

"It's still pretty new, okay," Nate replies, voice tight. Looks at him then. "How… how long were you…?"

He runs his hand through his hair- the one that isn't bloody- and looks away. "About a month. A little longer."

"A month?" Nate's eyebrows raise. "We were barely broken up for a month."

"You were broken up for almost two, counting the holidays," he retorts.

"Chuck."

He looks over at the sound of his own name.

"When did you stop sleeping with her? When was the last time?"

He considers, in a flash, lying. And decides against it. He meets Nate's eyes, but his voice and expression are apologetic. "The last time was right after your tux fitting for Cotillion."

"Wow." Nate blinks down into his glass. "That whole time- it was you she was texting."

"I don't know." Plausible deniability, though he's pretty sure he has a good idea. "We were talking while she was there, but I'm sure she was texting other people…"

"No." Nate pushes back his chair. "She was completely distracted, giggling and grinning and making all these smirking little faces…"

And damn if that doesn't make his black heart leap.

"She said she was texting Serena."

He shrugs, even as he knows he's being a coward. "Maybe she was."

Nate puts both hands on the counter and draws a breath, clearly trying to keep himself calm. "And you stopped because…?"

His eyes dart up at that. _Why else, Nate?_ "Because she chose you."

There's a silence, and he thinks they're done with this, and then Nate's voice cuts into his spliced thoughts of those rushed trysts- usually rushed- those indulgent, delicious memories- almost unwillingly: "When was the first time?"

His eyes close briefly. Reliving?

 _I'm yours._ \- _I just want to make sure you're sure._ \- _He's never done this to you? - Do you think he doesn't think I'm beautiful or something?_ \- _Blair. Blair. Blair. Blair. Blair-_

No, just a long blink.

He has to get the words out, get it over with. He's leaning forward, too, bracing his palms on the counter on the opposite side of the bar, a few feet between them diagonally.

"The opening night of Victrola."

Nate's eyes darken. "The night my father got arrested and she took our limo alone to you?"

"Not to _me_."

"To you," Nate says. "Your club. Your party." Teeth clenched: "Your bed."

Full disclosure isn't necessary, he decides. The limo part can be a conversation for another day.

"I knew she wasn't mine," he offers.

Though he'd allowed himself to believe otherwise.

Nate just stares at him.

"I'm genuinely sorry," he says slowly, quietly, "for hurting you and going behind your back and damaging our friendship. But I respect you enough to be honest. And I wouldn't take it back."

He expects Nate will hit him then, and he's ready for it.

Instead, he pushes his glass, empty again, back across the bar.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm not sure," he says honestly, pouring the Scotch. "I think at first, it seemed like it would end quickly and you two would get back together. But then it was going on for a week or two, and you were dealing with your dad- and it felt so… temporary- and then it seemed like you weren't getting back together…" He shakes his head. "I really don't know. It felt like you'd be angry, and then even when it didn't…"

The truth is that as the days ticked on and the kisses and touches got firmer and deeper and surer, it was more than just Nate's reaction, or anyone's reaction, that lurked behind the possibility of it getting out. There's no real way to put it into words. It was too delicate. Too good. Too delicious to risk.

Nate scoffs neutrally. "The two of you and your secrets." He rolls his eyes.

"Fair enough." He pours himself a little more too.

Silence again. Then: "So you found her?"

Found her, yes, he did. Found Blair the unbelievably passionate; Blair the hot-blooded; Blair who enjoyed pushing against walls and being pushed against walls; Blair who laced her fingers through his and pinned her hair up before she saw him so he could take it down; Blair who wouldn't stop kissing him while he came, somehow knowing how to draw out his orgasms, leaving him unable to catch his breath until she decided otherwise-

Nate's asking about the park, he realizes.

"Yes." He takes a sip. "After. Much later."

"Where was she?"

"She was in the park. That's where it happened. During the storm."

Blue eyes narrow. "What were you doing in the park?"

"I wasn't. I was near the edge- she was on the footpath by 76th. I was waiting for a car to pick me up and go home."

"From…?"

The twist of guilt is palpable between his ribs. Seven and eight. "Someone's apartment."

Nate smiles, exhaling lightly. A good-natured smirk. "A girl." He looks away. He doesn't have to say it: _how very Chuck Bass of you_.

He looks away, too. Deserves it, no question. More than Nate knows.

Later, Nate's shrugging into his coat, heading for the door, when he turns. Tugs on his lapels to snap the shoulders into place. Unconscious, long-limbed, athletic grace written in every gesture.

Clears his throat, briefly, needlessly.

"I wish it hadn't gone like this, man."

There's no diminutive one-shoulder shrug; no minimizing tilt of the head.

His synapses spark with her, shards of memories piecing themselves back into a windowpane, as he draws a breath to reply.

 _Breathless, pale in the morning light, hair in loose waves that she's done an admirable job fluffing, but that are really just remnants of yesterday's curls._

 _Serena had showed up, voice singing up from the foyer followed by the clacking of high-heeled boots on the stairs, and wanted to go out for eggs and shoe shopping._

 _He'd ducked into her bathroom, behind the casually half-open door- definitely nothing to see here- listening for the elevator to ding, after which he'd wait several silent minutes before slipping out after them._

 _Ding._

 _But then he'd heard her voice, the lilt bright and excited. Happy. And the rainfall of ballet flats – Repettos that she got in Paris – up the stairs._

 _She didn't bother to shut her bedroom door – royal blue swing coat on over a gray sweater dress; the first two things she'd found in her closet – and, glancing around, made for him._

 _Eased around the corner headfirst. He'd waited for a scold for almost giving her away (planned his eyeroll, as he'd done no such thing), waited for her to say she forgot her lipstick or couldn't find her wallet._

" _Bye," she'd whispered, reaching for his hair with one hand, bicep with another, tugging him in for a kiss that lingered. Her lips on his, all his mind's eye could see was the delight written on her face. The moment she'd peered around the door, seeking him._

 _Not lipstick or wallet or hat-_ him _._

 _Dimples and a warm secret in her eyes. Pulled back, another smile, kissed him quickly once more._

 _Before she'd ducked back out: "See you later?"_

 _As if it was already settled._

 _And it was._

"What I wouldn't give," he agrees, holding out his hand. Nate shakes without hesitation.

Because Nate's a far better man than he is.

iii.

The index finger has stopped tapping; it's in the air now, with the other four fingers, hailing a cab. It's too late for the subway, and tomorrow will be a big day.

Bleary eyes and ink-stained palms. The smell of the machines, pulp and hot metal and what smells faintly of leather a faint memory behind.

In the room where the ribbons are spun.

Newspapers never sleep.

 _Approved. Copy and photos._

iv.

He's getting out of the shower when he hears his phone buzzing, and he sees her name from across the bed and dives for it.

Gets it before it goes to voicemail.

"Hi, 'Blair's new number,' Chuck Bass's phone – how may I direct your call?"

He hoped right earlier – he hears a faint chuckle. "Please tell Mr. Bass that his new personal assistant sounds like an incompetent ape."

He smirks. "How are Eleanor and Harold today?"

"Miserable," she whimpers dramatically. "I realize they're concerned, but I'm not a porcelain doll, for God's sake. I swear my mother wants me to come sleep in bed with her."

He raises his eyes incredulously at the very thought, still half-sprawled on his bed in a towel. "I'm trying to imagine how I'd feel if Bart invited me to bunk up."

"Let me save you the trouble. It's heinous." She lowers her voice. "She invited Nate over on my behalf. He came over for a while, which was fine, but I wish she'd have a little self-control."

"Well," he says tentatively, not really wanting to ask at all, "to be fair, have you mentioned you're not dating dear Nathaniel these days?"

She snorts. "Believe me- I want to. I hadn't seen her much, and haven't talked to her about anything personal in ages, but I'd love nothing more right now than to make that clear to her." She lowers her voice again; he can almost hear her looking around. "But she's on the verge of having a stroke as it is. I don't think she needs to hear the story of how her only child is a whore on the same weekend she sees it carved into her leg."

He's been pushing his hand through his wet hair, trying to smooth it so it doesn't dry in obnoxious cowlicks. His hand stops at this. "You're not a whore," he tells her firmly.

She sighs, and now he can almost hear her rolling her eyes.

"I'm wondering," she continues, voice louder and more authoritative now, "if we should figure out some tip to send to Gossip Girl to throw focus off me for the time being." She pauses. "I can't go back to school any time soon."

For many reasons, she does not add.

Bed rest for one; stitched-up face for another; not being able to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time for a third.

She sniffs. "And people will talk." They'd talk at the best of times.

"Who cares?" The world of Gossip Girl suddenly seems, to him, so childishly insignificant that he wants to hire someone to hack and destroy it.

"I agree, but the more I'm not seen at school… people will start digging, and then…"

Someone will find out.

"I don't want people to know," she murmurs.

He hauls himself up, damp towel cooling, and puts on a robe. "There's no reason that you wouldn't go back to school if you're still in Manhattan," he points out. "Do you think you should go away for a while?"

"I don't think I should run. People would think I was a coward." She pauses. "They'd wonder why I'd do something so extreme. The curiosity creates more of a risk than if I stay here and everyone assumes they know the whole story."

He tosses the towel over the drying rack and turns off the lights, pausing with his hand on the duvet.

"Would you rather people think you were a coward, or wonder what else might have happened?"

There's a small, sweet _hmm_. "They'll think I'm a coward either way, won't they."

It's not a question. They both know the answer.

He pauses as he sinks to his pillows, straining to hear what she murmurs next, almost to herself: "And I'd rather be a whore than a victim."

"You're neither," he corrects her with a sideways glance at the closed file folder on his nightstand. "You're Blair Waldorf."

She hesitates, looking for a way to divert. "I didn't sleep well last night again. I thought I'd sleep better at home."

"You will."

"I keep waking up. It's like… when it's dark and quiet and I'm…" _Alone._ "Even if I'm asleep, I know… he's out there."

It's the first time she's said _he_.

He stretches his free arm out, then rests it behind his head, the picture of relaxed confidence. Except his hand is clenched into a tight fist.

"He won't be," he tells her. The first assurance he's made to her since the cab ride to the hospital that he knows will come true. Because he'll make it come true, one way or the other. "Not for long."

"Serena's coming to stay over tonight."

He wants to make a signature joke about the two of them having pillow fights.

"She'll protect me." Her tone is light, humorous, but there's a hard edge there.

"Like anyone could get past Dorota."

Then they're both quiet, because he can hear her unspoken response. _You did._

"I think she's here," she says a minute later when she hears the ding of the elevator followed by uneven punches of footfall. Only Serena has such character in every stride. "Keep me updated on how things go tomorrow."

"Évidemment," he says- _obviously -_ wondering if she remembers _allouette, allouette._ Or _un, deux, trois._ "Bonne nuit."

"Avance, monsieur," she murmurs, just like every other French phrase she's ever dropped into a sentence- no recognition in her voice- and the line goes dead a split second later.

 _Onward._

He drops his phone on top of the folder and switches off the light, hearing her _we_ over and over – _I'm wondering if_ we _should figure out some tip…_

He wants to smile that she's asking for his help, but can't quite do it.

Even if she's trying to forgive him, just a little; even if she's considering moving past what he said; even if she's one iota inclined to put her trust in him.

He can't even begin to entertain any of that. Not until the guy is dead and she can breathe again.

v.

Far away from the whir of the black-and-white ribbon, an impassive face reads the message with an abbreviated sigh. Relief? Shock?

This set of fingers picks, agitated, at already-ragged cuticles. A subtle tipoff of anxiety, were anyone looking.

Hand in the air- no ink, no cab- pausing, hovering, above a laptop screen.

 _Approved. It's gone to press._

And closing the lid with a soft click.

vi.

Serena, unsurprisingly, doesn't think the right move is to figure out a tip to throw everyone off.

But when she sees that Blair is serious about considering the idea, at least to debate it, her eyes flash with something unrecognizable. "Let's make up something about me," she says at once.

"No. Not you."

"Come on, something believable. Something about how I'm slipping back to the dark side. 'Old Serena is back.' 'Risen angel falls again.'" She rolls her eyes. "She'd have a field day."

Blair touches at her stitched lip, self-conscious. "And Dan?"

"He'll understand. I'll warn him ahead of time."

"But what reason could you give?" Blair realizes, and when Serena freezes, letting her hair down from its bun- already in pajamas with her Prada loafers- Blair stops breathing. "You told him," she says, below a whisper. Serena reads it on her lips rather than hearing it.

"Blair, I…"

But Blair's eyes are already flicking back and forth, frantic, a runaway train. "He's going to tell Jenny, and she's going to tell Penelope- oh, my God, Serena…" She looks up, eyes brimming, tears spilling over immediately. "How _could_ you?"

"He's not going to tell anyone."

"Serena." She's not listening. She buries her eyes against her good palm. " _Serena_."

"Blair, please… listen- he's not going to tell anyone. He didn't tell Jenny anything last time. She was eavesdropping. That was my fault. He's not going to tell _anyone._ I swear. I promise." She pauses, searching for something to supplement her argument. "He was really upset. He feels terrible. He's asked about you like fifty times. And even if he wanted to tell anyone, Chuck told him he'd murder him if he did…" she pauses with a smirk. "And I think he meant it."

Blair lifts her head, eyes flashing. "Chuck was there?" Chuck had _let_ her do that?

"N- no." Serena stumbles as she climbs onto the bed. "Dan was leaving The Palace and Chuck was coming home. They saw each other, and Chuck just… knew somehow."

Blair wipes her nose on one sleeve. "I don't take Humphrey for being a fantastic actor," she mutters.

"No, he's not."

She fixes a red-rimmed look on the blonde. "Is there anything else I should know?" She manages, somehow, to be both withering and vulnerable at once.

"Nothing at all. Erik thinks there's something going on because of how…" she hesitates. "Preoccupied I've been. But Chuck got him to drop it."

Better Chuck manage these situations than Serena.

Dorota's brought extra pillows, since Blair needs every single one she has to prop her upright. Serena builds her side of the bed to equal height. "You can sleep like a normal person," Blair sighs when she sees what she's doing. "It's really uncomfortable."

"I'll be uncomfortable with you," Serena says, leaning over Blair to turn off her bedside light.

Blair grabs at her hand in the dark. "Please, make sure he doesn't tell," she whispers.

Serena laces their fingers together and squeezes.

vii.

He's awakened by his phone buzzing. He grabs at it, sure it's her, or Tyler, so desperate that he pushes the file folder off his bedside table.

It's Arthur.

He falls back against his pillows.

"Good morning," he breathes, eyes closed, half-deranged, half-asleep. "Is the limo on fire?"

"No, sir."

And the dry threat that it had better be an emergency to wake him so early dies on his lips. "What's going on?"

"I don't suppose you've seen Page Six."

"I haven't seen anything other than the backs of my own eyelids. What time is it?"

"It's about five-fifteen, sir. I'm sorry to disturb you. I just got the paper."

He has a sinking feeling in his stomach. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "What is it?"

Arthur pauses. "Yours is probably at your door."

He sighs. "All right. I'll see you at our normal time."

Sure enough, it's there, a copy waiting patiently in front of 1812 along with a few others in his hallway.

Flicking on the light, squinting at the sharpness against his sleep-sensitive eyes, he spreads the Post on the bar and flips to the gossip section.

He exhales softly in dismay as he turns the page. Then the next. Photo after photo. Wide brown eyes, perfectly styled hair, in her school uniform, at Cotillion, with headbands and high heels.

His first thought is that this is ridiculous. _Ridiculous_. Her parents are going to sue and they're going to become multimillionaires many more times over than they already are. This is unsubstantiated nonsense.

But his mouth is dry because that doesn't solve it.

His second thought is that this is Page Six; it's a gossip column. The world's most famous gossip column, actually. Publishing salacious, unsubstantiated rumors is their business. The daughter and darling of the already precarious Waldorf family – _plot twist: gay patriarch; late bloomer; sampling male models from his wife's fashion business until he finds the boy toy he wants to buy!_ \- yes, they all remember those blurbs from last year – is more than fair game. Though, maybe because she's seventeen and a minor-

His third thought takes over then, the only one that matters: lawsuits and settlements and legislative punishment are all for tomorrow. And what's today is that this paper is, at this very moment, in the process of being distributed all over Manhattan. Everyone is going to know. _Everyone._

Suddenly he wishes it was just Gossip Girl sending it out, that it was the buzzing of his phone, the harbinger of the blast, that woke him up. He wishes Humphrey had just told his sister and the people at school heard and that was the whole of it.

This is a level of exposure that hasn't even occurred to him.

Fumbling, he dials the number for the Waldorf penthouse, but gets no answer. And what's he planning to do, anyway? Warn them?

Their phone will be ringing off the hook soon enough.

He stares at her text. _Blair's new number._

He can't be the one to tell her. He can't call her and wake her up with this.

 _Sleep,_ he tells her name in his phone silently. _Sleep as long as you can._

He starts in his own hallway and works his way through the three corridors that make up the U-shape of his floor, at a fast clip, picking up every copy of the Post that's lying in front of a doorway. He drops them down chutes at the corner of each hall.

One floor down; 54 to go.

viii.

Serena is up and getting dressed for school, Blair groggy under the comforter. "Breakfast?" Blair asks.

"Sure, I have time for a bite. Should I ask Dorota to bring something up?" Blair nods with a yawn.

Going downstairs is like wading into a pond filled with quicksand. Eleanor, in nightgown and robe, is on the verge of hyperventilating. Harold doesn't look much better, gripping the sides of a newspaper with such fury that the whole thing crinkles under his fingers.

Dorota, the innocent messenger, seems to be the clay pigeon Eleanor is using for target practice.

"This is an outrage," Eleanor hisses. "An outrage."

"Control yourself," Harold says coolly, his lawyer's mind humming. Serena steps forward, hesitantly. No one has seen her yet. She's just decided on slipping back upstairs – she left the door open to Blair's bedroom and she's not sure Blair should hear whatever they're saying – when Eleanor whirls on Harold, seeing Serena but disregarding her.

"Harold, it's an invasion of privacy! It's disgusting! She's legally a _child_! Do something!"

Serena cringes, glancing up toward the open bedroom door. She's sure Blair heard that.

Much too late. Harold is dutifully ignoring Eleanor, working his way through whatever is in the paper, and suddenly Blair is on the landing. "What's going on?"

Everyone freezes and turns. Dorota closes her eyes briefly.

Eleanor stretches her mouth into a smile. "Nothing, darling. Just go ahead back to bed. Dorota will bring up some breakfast- what about pancakes?- "

"Mother, just tell me what you're screeching about, please," Blair says steadily. She looks at Harold. "Daddy?"

Eleanor throws Harold a warning look, but he looks at Blair for a few seconds, and then turns the paper over and holds it up for her. Serena sees a flash of it, and her mouth falls open.

"You're all over Page Six," he says quietly.

Blair's lips open, half-lidded, sleepy eyes blinking slowly. She leans on the railing and comes down two steps. "What does it say?"

"What happened." He clears his throat. "All with the obligatory qualifiers: 'a source close to the family,' 'allegedly,' 'reportedly,' and so forth. But- the assault, when it happened, that you recovered in a hospital in Manhattan, where you were treated for multiple injuries, including broken bones, and are now resting at home." He regards the paper again. "The captions of these photos identify Nate Archibald, 'son of Anne and the recently indicted Howard Archibald,'" he grimaces at the Post's tactlessness, which seems a waste of energy to Serena, "as your boyfriend."

Blair stares at Serena, her teeth clenched. When Serena sees, she shakes her head quickly. "He didn't do this."

"Who else?" Blair hisses.

"Who?" Eleanor demands. "Nate?"

"Never," Serena shakes her head dismissively. Back to Blair: "I promise, he didn't. I'd stake my life on it."

"The circle was closed," Blair grinds out, eyes hot and wet. "You _promised_ me."

"Who are you talking about?" Harold asks sternly.

Blair exhales, angry, through her nose. "She told her boyfriend."

"Dan?" Eleanor splutters. Blair suppresses an eyeroll. Leave it to her to remember Serena's knockoff boyfriend's name.

"He didn't tell," Serena insists hotly.

"Probably just told his sister," Blair fires back. "Go, Serena. I'm getting back in bed and sleeping until I wake up from this nightmare. No one speak to me."

She struggles up the stairs and drops Serena's overnight bag outside her bedroom door.

ix.

"Did you do this?" she asks as soon as Dan answers.

"Do what? Good morning."

She bites back tears. "Did you leak the story?"

"What?"

"About Blair," she murmurs, desperate. "Did you leak it to Page Six?"

He pauses. "What? No. Of course not. Wait, it's on Page Six?"

"Pages and pages of photos of her, and the story, the whole thing." She covers her eyes with one hand, lowering it from where it was poised to hail a cab.

"God- no, of course not."

She bites her lip. "You didn't tell anyone, did you?" _Not Jenny, did you?_

"No." He's firm. "Absolutely no one. I haven't breathed a word, not texted a word, not emailed a word. Nothing. Only talked about it in person to you. And that one sentence with Chuck."

"Okay. I'll see you at school."

x.

In the end, he enlists backup from the concierge desk- Kathryn, the night manager, ever reliable- and all employees on the graveyard shift are dispatched to help him. He figures they got most of them; few guests would have been up early enough to get their papers by 6:30 AM.

Great. One hotel down; that just leaves the rest of Manhattan.

He's sweating, from adrenaline as much as the exertion of barreling down corridors, picking up papers without breaking stride and shoving piles of them down chutes, and showers again before ducking into his limo, wet hair dampening his collar.

Serena's calling as Arthur pulls away from the curb.

"See it?" he answers.

"She thinks it was Dan."

"Can't say I find her illogical there."

"It wasn't. She's mad at me for telling him."

He sighs inwardly at her lack of focus. "Whoever it was, the damage is nigh. Someone let it slip."

"She went back to sleep." He hears a muffled car horn on her end, followed by another, closer. "I hate that there's nothing we can do."

"Who said there was nothing we could do? There's always something. I'll call you back." He hangs up. Navigates to her name.

She'll see it when she wakes up.

He struggles with what to say, typing and deleting: _"I didn't do this."_ No. _"I saw. I'm sorry."_ No.

" _Ideas for how to kill the person who talked?"_ No.

He looks out the window helplessly. Newspaper vendor boxes on the curb; newsstands; corner convenience stores. She's not on the cover, but no one will have to flip far before they find her.

He glances back down at his phone.

" _I'm on it."_

xi.

His father answers on the first ring. "I got three complaints that guests requested the Post and didn't have it when they woke up this morning," he says by way of greeting. "But I've opened my copy, and I suppose you're responsible for that."

"Yes."

"This is just… most unfortunate."

He swallows. "I agree."

"I hope they'll take legal action. Harold is well connected. He'll get it sorted."

"Can we help control the… damage?" he asks, not sure how else to put it.

Bart pauses. "In what way?"

"Do we know anyone at the Post?"

"Yes, but- it's already in circulation."

He looks out the window again. "Can we get it taken off the internet, at least? Contain it?"

He imagines his father at his desk, fingers drumming, alert and immaculate at 7:30 AM. "I'll see what I can do."

He hangs up and sees he has an unread text. Slides his phone back open.

" _Thank you."_

xii.

He calls Serena back when he's a few blocks from school.

"Meet me out front," he says.

When she opens the door, Nate slides in after her. Chuck glances up. "Reinforcements?"

Then Dan Humphrey climbs in, too.

He looks at Serena drily. "Really?"

"Good morning to you, too," Dan says, just as dry.

"We all want the same thing," Serena insists, settling across from Chuck on the long side seats while Nate and Dan take the back. "More manpower can't hurt."

His lip curls in disgust. "I don't particularly see what value Humphrey adds to an operation." He spares him a glance. "No special offense."

"None taken."

Nate rolls his eyes. "Look, none of us plays the game like you and Blair. Without her, you're the only one with the instinct, so we're your soldiers." He waves a hand. "Lead, captain."

Chuck sighs.

"Fine. My father is working to get the Post to remove it from their website…"

Serena brightens. "That's great!"

He holds up a hand. " _If_ that works, it will remove the online presence of the story and stop it from potentially going viral. However, we still have issues with the thousands of printed copies already in circulation."

Serena's phone buzzes. "Sorry- Erik, hi," she murmurs.

" _This_ is what you were keeping from me?" His voice, almost at a shout, is clear in the confined space.

Her face falls. "I had to- I'm sorry-"

"Oh, my God. How is she?"

"Give me the phone," Chuck demands, grabbing for it. "Erik. What are you doing right now?"

"Walking to homeroom and then cramming for my Latin test."

"Can you cut?"

Serena protests, wide-eyed.

"I mean- yeah. For what?"

Hand curled around the phone, he looks down at the floor between his feet, remembering his shoes so carefully aligned on the floor of the waiting room at the hospital, the moment when he was sure the nurse was going to tell him that she was dead and that it was his fault. "Operation Kill the Waldorf Story."

"I'm in," Erik says at once. "Where are you?"

"My limo. Follow the sounds of your sister's protestations." He snaps the phone shut and hands it back over.

Serena stammers helplessly, but just then, two gloved hands press against the window of the limo to Dan's right, followed briefly by an abstract oval, the fuzzy darkness that must be a face. One hand disappears, then pounds on the tinted glass.

"It's not a vault door, it's a window," Chuck yells. "Open it."

The door flings open and a crying Jenny Humphrey tumbles in, yanking it closed behind her.

Dan tenses. "Jen…"

"Did you know?" She looks at him, wiping away tears, then takes in Nate, Serena, and finally Chuck.

They all look back silently.

"She was _raped_ ," she splutters at them, angry. "Where is she now?" She spins to Serena.

"Home."

"Can I go see her? I want to apologize. For… everything." She's smearing her mascara.

Serena pauses, then shakes her head no.

"I can't believe she…" She trails off and turns to her brother. "What are you doing in here? I saw you get in and thought you'd get right back out. Where are you going?"

"Go to class, Jen."

Nate chimes in: "Go ahead. It'll be fine."

"It's _not_ fine!"

Chuck pinches the bridge of his nose again, groaning under his breath. He glares at Serena: _see what happens when you get a Humphrey involved?_ He needs a drink already. It's not even 8 AM.

Erik slides in next, almost piling on top of Jenny, who's still whimpering, Dan's arm around her awkwardly now; Erik moves to the right to sit beside his sister.

He pulls off his knitted hat. "What's the plan?"

"We're not sure yet." Chuck lowers the partition. "Arthur. Back to The Palace, please."

"No, no." Dan unfolds Jenny from his arms. "You're going back to school."

"I'm going wherever you're going," she tells him, but glances around to everyone. "I'm helping."

She's wearing a bright red headband, classic French-dotted black tights, and black velvet heels to match a black velvet coat- classic Blair Waldorf style, dressed with deliberate attention to detail, ready to supplant the queen she's now intent on saving.

Dan sighs, hugging her close again. He looks down at her pink-nosed face and thinks how he'd want every one of these people on his side if this happened to her.

He nods at Chuck.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank you, thank you all for reading, subscribing and reviewing. I deeply appreciate you lending me your ear! And to my very kind anonymous reviewer, I appreciate your time in reading whether or not you write a review (though I'll never turn that down ;D).**

 _January 14, morning_

i.

The operation is underway in room 1812, coats and scarves strewn about like it's a party south of 14th Street – though collectively they look more like a study group, a half dozen pairs of tense shoulders in school uniforms poised beneath serious expressions, downing coffee from room service, laptops pulled out from bags and balanced on any available surface – when Bart calls him back.

"It's done. It'll be off the internet in the next 30 minutes."

He's actually speechless, stammering- "How-?"- feeling several pairs of eyes on him.

"Friend of a friend. They agreed to pull it. But Charles- it's already been picked up by TMZ."

He sighs noiselessly. "I see."

"TMZ is heavily trafficked – probably more so than Page Six Online. And it's worldwide."

He glances sidelong at the ragtag army assembled in his suite. He's not even sure he and Blair could come up with an adequate plan to attack something on this scale.

"Well," he manages. "At least the Post taking it down is something."

"I wish we'd known before the papers went out. Gossip columnists in New York are the ones who will make noise about it."

And they're the ones who are buying the Post.

They're the Patient Zero of any story on a Waldorf.

He looks at them again- two Humphreys, two Van der Woodsens and an Archibald. Pawns, really.

But perhaps enough, if they arrange themselves strategically, to at least make a go of protecting the Queen.

ii.

"One of us has to stay here and track whether anyone else picks it up," Dan points out as they all reach for their coats.

"Jenny," Serena nominates.

Jenny makes a noise of dismay. "I want to help…"

"You are helping," Dan cuts her off. "You're the eyes and ears of the operation. Stay glued to the computer screen and don't leave this suite for any reason."

"I wish Blair was here," Nate says to Chuck. "Between the two of you, you'd have this wrapped up by lunch."

He smirks mirthlessly as he plucks his scarf from the foot of his bed, draining the last of his coffee.

Serena turns to Dan. "Oh, lunch," she murmurs. "Maybe we can get a bite later- are you in the mood for sushi at all-?"

Chuck suppresses an eyeroll, waving a hand at them. "You two are going separately. No lunch dates while we're mid-operation. Get sushi on your own time."

They separate in the lobby, Bass credit cards shuffled like clubs and spades and diamonds and handed out to all of them: "No great strategy required here. Just grit. Buy everything you can find."

"Are we recycling?" Nate asks.

"Within reason," Serena replies.

Chuck doesn't suppress his eyeroll this time.

"Just make sure they're gone."

It's almost funny. Almost hilarious, actually- a group of elite Upper-East-Side private school students, the world at their feet, dashing on foot- designer footwear, more like- from newsstand to corner store to bookshop, buying every copy of the Post they can get their hands on. Dumping every stack they can find in the nearest bin. A guerrilla operation, hasty and retrograde, to physically plug the dam of scandal and shame. A circling of wagons around the girl that all but one of them has betrayed in some way in the last week.

All but one from Brooklyn, who doesn't have the world at his feet and whose shoes weren't handmade in Italy.

Who didn't betray her, but who feels a stinging tug at his heart every time he thinks of her, every time someone mentions her, every time a shadow crosses someone's face or a tear falls from someone's eye.

Though he had nothing to do with any of what happened to her last week. He's the only one who didn't have a hand in putting her in harm's way. The only one whose lips haven't uttered her secrets.

Even still, he pauses on the sidewalk.

And Jenny clicks through the tabs of her browser, sending group text updates when NewYorkRag and SocietyUnderground, two other scandal sites, pick up the story from TMZ, linking back to Page Six Online, which now returns an error message.

And reports that Gossip Girl is still deafening in her silence. And as a matter of fact, the- ahem- the posts from last Thursday have disappeared, too.

The one from Brooklyn blinks, breath white in the chill, taking a long look at the city around him.

Xoxo.

iii.

The forecast didn't call for snow that day, but flakes begin to flutter around 10 AM.

They're all making progress, in what Serena wrinkled her brow and likened to a "six-handed massage" when Nate described it as a zone defense: Chuck covering midtown; Nate 23rd Street downward; Serena Upper East; Dan Upper West; Erik FiDi upward, until he meets Nate in the middle.

Around noon, Jenny sends another group text that The Palace has delicious espresso and she's not finding anything new online.

" _No more caffeine,"_ Dan replies.

She sends a frownie face.

Erik reports that almost no newsstands in FiDi carry the Post; they're all full of a curious mix of financial newspapers in various languages and pamphlets for 24-hour food delivery services with discreet ads for prostitutes tucked into their centers.

Serena: _"Gross. Shield your eyes!"_

Erik replies that at this rate, he'll be at Houston Street by 2pm.

Nate's faring worse in the East Village: _"Bookstores and cafes with tabloids everywhere I look."_

" _UWS is pretty bare,"_ Dan notes.

" _UES a nightmare! Getting stopped everywhere I go!"_ Serena is in two of the photos, and much of the Upper East Side knows her and Blair by sight. She stopped after the first thirty minutes to buy a knitted beanie, tucking her hair inside and pulling the brim low.

" _What about north of the Park?"_ Jenny asks. _"Should I go?"_

" _Different universe,"_ Chuck dismisses. _"Stay where you are."_

" _No more caffeine,"_ Dan warns her again.

" _Do you have to be so bossy?"_

" _LOL don't make me turn this car around!"_ Serena punctuates her exclamations with smiley faces.

" _Haha flashback."_ Erik winks at Serena.

 _Patience_ , he tells himself. _These are novices, but they're all you have._

" _Focus."_ He snaps his phone shut and puts it on silent, and so misses his father's call two minutes later.

He's most of the way through Midtown.

iv.

He finally sees Bart's call over a half hour later, and calls him back at once. It's just past 1:00.

"I was just about to try you again. It'll be taken down everywhere – well, should be down now, actually. Let me refresh." He pauses. Chuck's mouth is too dry to speak. "Still up on that NewYorkRag site. What trash." Another click. "Gone everywhere else, though."

He can't put breath behind a single word, though several bounce in his throat.

"Charles?"

"I'm here," he says weakly, turning on the street, the sharp blast of the Midtown wind tunnels blowing his hair back and ruffling the Ace bandage looped carelessly around his smarting knuckles. He looks at the newsstand up the block, his next target. "I'm sorry, sir, I just can't form a thought…"

"I regret that it took so long."

"This is the most unbelievable… How- how did you do this, sir?"

"Friends, threats, holding the deeds to buildings where people live and earn their livelihoods- they all have their uses." There's not a hint of arrogance in Bart's quiet tone.

In a flash, he sees both how alike he and his father are and how much he has yet to learn from him. He's never wanted to wrap his arms around the man as much as he does right now.

He screws his eyes shut, one hand fisting and knocking softly, idly, at his own temple. "I'm so grateful. Please- take whatever funds out of my trust-"

Bart clears his throat, a subtle indication that he doesn't wish to pursue this part of the conversation further. "Word has been put out. No one else is going to pick this up. The inventory of physical papers should be virtually depleted by the end of the day." He pauses. "Congratulations on the success of your first endeavor in crisis PR."

Now there's a hint of amusement. "And make up your classwork."

Click.

New messages from Jenny. _"They're gone! They're all gone!"_

Serena: _"All of them?"_

Erik: _"TMZ?"_

" _Yes! All error messages!"_

He breathes out, a smile of relief on his face, as he types. _"All units back to 1812. Jenny, ask room service to send up a lunch spread."_

He grabs a cab going eastward on 42nd and texts Tyler on the way: _"Anything for me?"_

" _Not yet,"_ comes the reply. Then: _"But I'm on it."_

He catches the corner of his smirk reflected in the rearview mirror. One battle is won, if not in a massacre then a sound defeat.

Now onto the next.

v.

In the end, he knows, they only got a fraction of the newspapers that were out there. He figures he made the most progress, but even with the hundreds or thousands of papers they disposed of between them, there are untold copies still in circulation, not to mention the ones that were delivered by subscription direct to offices, residences and hotels- other than The Palace, that is.

The rest of the group seems to think they eradicated the plague, the way they're clinking glasses and exchanging serious looks.

He clinks along with them, almost smiling fondly, despite himself, at the rush of having done something indisputably right. Something good.

Serena drops a kiss on Dan's mouth, her smile wider and deeper than his, and smooths Jenny's hair- bright red headband nowhere to be seen- when the younger blonde throws her arms around her. Dan and Nate are shaking hands and toasting.

Amateurs.

His phone rings shortly before 2:30 PM. He steps into the hall to answer it.

"The story was picked up by a bunch of other websites, and then disappeared," she says when he says hello. "Do I have you to thank for that?"

"I thought you were sleeping." She doesn't even dignify his put-off with a response; just waits. "No, not directly. But I did what I could."

"Thank you," she whispers, and it rushes over him, warm and luxurious. _Something good._ Then she clears her throat. "My parents want to see you."

"Why?"

"They want to thank you for helping me. I warn you, my mother's probably going to hug you. She's suddenly very affectionate." She pauses. "I told them you had a big test to study for and I didn't know if you could take a break."

He snorts. "I'm glad they know me so abstractly that that alibi holds water. I'll be there in an hour."

vi.

Eleanor not only hugs him, she hugs him twice. First a tight squeeze around his shoulders; second after two kisses, one on each cheek, followed by an affectionate ruffle of his hair.

"Charles, Charles, my dear boy," she's murmuring, makeup freshly applied, pearls in place. She's decked herself out in Chanel for him – skirt suit and No. 5 perfume.

He's glad he put on a tie along with his school jacket: the dutiful Charles, having just taken a break from academic drills in the St. Jude's library after another devoted day of scholastic pursuits. He decides his big test will be in European history, if anyone asks. With a final essay, if he had to take an educated guess based on the curriculum this semester, on the effectiveness of Sun Tzu's tactical methodologies as employed during the Napoleonic Wars.

Just to imagine Blair covering a smirk if it's mentioned in front of her.

Harold waits his turn, his embrace more abbreviated, less tense. "It's good to see you, Charles."

Eleanor is beaming at him. "Can we offer you anything? An after-school snack?" He keeps his polite smile intact with effort. What a wholesome idea. If these weren't Blair's parents, he'd innocently ask for a cheese sandwich or crackers with peanut butter. "Some tea? Can you stay for dinner?"

"Let him breathe," Harold injects, eyes crinkling at the corners.

"We just- we both just," Eleanor continues, hand on his shoulder guiding him into their front parlor, pressing him into an armchair and sitting down opposite, "we don't know how to express our gratitude to you. The medical staff at Mt. Sinai, despite their many inadequacies-" Harold tries and fails to cover a sigh- "were very clear about the role you played in saving Blair's life."

He opens his mouth to protest, not sure what he's going to say.

Certainly not the truth.

Certainly not _would you like to see the surveillance footage of her crying on the street just beforehand, after I essentially called her worthless trash?_

Something more mannered than that.

"I won't hear a word of humility out of you," she tuts, pressing on his knee now. "I realize it was by chance that you were walking by, but without you- had it been someone who didn't know her- we might not be sitting here right now, with her safe in her bedroom."

Her voice quavers.

"We might be at her wake."

Harold closes his eyes. "Eleanor."

"I'm sorry." She withdraws her hand from his knee and puts it in her lap. "Charles, just know, we are so grateful that it was you who found her. Please take our blessing with you wherever you go."

They tell him Blair is up in her room; she's not supposed to be getting out of bed. The statement is almost an apology.

vii.

He pauses a few feet from her door and texts Tyler to ask for an update.

He knocks, but it's unlocked and cracks open. Her eyes are dancing when he shuts the door behind him. "How many hugs did you get?"

"Two." He looks up at her wryly, playing along, but doesn't miss the hollowness around her eyes.

He settles himself into her vanity chair, twisting it out from its crevice with a thoughtless flick of the wrist. The gesture is familiar, reflexive. She watches him do it.

It's getting dark outside; just past 4 PM, but it's January, and the sun hasn't shone since the blizzard. Her bedroom looks like twilight.

"How was your day?" she asks him blandly.

"Enchanting." He smirks back. "And yours?"

"Beyond magical."

He laces his fingertips over one knee. "For the record- I actually don't think it was Humphrey. He and his sister were both quite perturbed by the whole episode."

"Little J," she sighs, as though she's forgotten about her entirely until now. Which she certainly hasn't. She presses her lips gently together in thought. "Whoever it was, they created something that can never be undone."

His clasped hands lift and re-settle further over his knee, absently tugging it toward him. "They'll pay."

She lifts her eyes to his. Shrugs one shoulder.

He peers back. "You don't want them to?"

"I'd settle," she says, flicking away what's next to her on the bed, and he sees it for the first time: a copy of Page Six, "for surviving my parents trying to suddenly be… parents. And avoiding any further pity from anyone." She frowns. "And being able to sleep."

He tugs at his tie, loosening it- Oh, what a day of studying the failed Russian Campaign of 1812, of shaking his fist at Napoleon's overconfidence in advancing into the tundra without secured supply lines. _N'avance pas, monsieur!_

She'd find that funny. "Want me to tell you a story?"

Her mouth curves, and the smirk reaches her eyes, which hold his. Her gaze is traveling over him now, and he wonders, absently, if she can see the dark circles under his own eyes. She's quiet for a few seconds too long.

His hand stills on the knot.

"What?"

"You look tired," she says.

He couldn't have slept more than five hours last night, and that was by far the most sleep he's had since last Wednesday. Before Bemelman's.

He pulls on his tie again, to the other side of his neck this time, and the knot gives way, sliding an inch or two under his hooked fingers. "Are you saying I've seen better days?"

"No."

They look at each other, two halves of a smirk making one whole.

Wordlessly, she nods her head to her right, the empty half of the bed beside her. His smirk fades, hand stills. She picks up her splinted hand and lays it firmly on the coverlet, face serious too.

He pushes the chair back in, jacket draped over its back, and- toes of one foot at the heel of the other- pries off his shoes. As he places one knee on the bed, she nods at his chest. "No ties in my bed."

How could he forget?

He tosses Page Six on the floor. His fingers tuck into the crook of her elbow; the other hand releases the top button on his shirt. She sighs in the gray stillness.

 _He's shaking Harold's hand, Eleanor beaming at him through wet eyes, when something occurs to him. "Does Blair know a Monsieur Petitdemange?"_

 _Harold frowns, finishing the handshake at half speed. "Petitdemange?"_

" _When we were in the cab on the way to the hospital, she was in and out of consciousness, and for a while she was only speaking in French. She was talking to a Monsieur Petitdemange."_

 _Eleanor turns to Harold. "The bookseller?"_

" _Ah." He nods, thoughtful, a small smile warming his face. "When Blair was little, we spent a few summers in various towns in France, first in the Loire and then on the coast- and in…" he turns to Eleanor. "Was it Chartres?"_

" _Honfleur," she supplies._

" _Honfleur, yes- in Honfleur, the most charming town square with a children's book store. The bookseller was a delightful older Frenchman."_

" _He was wonderful with children," Eleanor agrees, expression dreaming along with Harold's. "We were in there at least once a week."_

" _At least." Raised eyebrows indicate it was more than that. "That was the summer when Blair's fluency really took hold. She must have been six or seven." His eyes mist as he glances at the stairs. "Darling girl."_

 _Eleanor comes back to reality, too, and fights a frown. "What did she say about him?"_

" _She wanted him to sing with her. A song about a bird."_

 _They don't need to know that the song was essentially a narration of the different parts of the bird's body being plucked._

 _Eleanor smiles up at Harold, patting his arm. "That's lovely. A fond memory she's held onto. I had no idea she remembered him."_

Alouette, alouette.

He glances at her in the dark when he knows she's asleep and- remembering the first moment he realized her stockings were gone, the surprising sharpness of his fingers finding the dried blood on her leg, the way she looked into his eyes under the streetlights muffled by snow and didn't know him- moves himself as smoothly as he can, just an inch or two closer to her.

He silenced his phone in the elevator, and so misses the second important call of the day, and the text that follows, illuminating the silk lining of his interior jacket pocket:

" _Heads up- NYPD coming Waldorfs' way. This is definitely our guy, but there's been an unfortunate complication with the DNA match."_

viii.

He was supposed to be better now.

He'd done everything right.

He'd had a job in the library and volunteered to teach his peers to read. Taught them about philosophy and history and art, flipping through the encyclopedia and explaining what the pictures were when they got frustrated at their own lack of intellectual abilities.

He'd made his bed the way he was supposed to and kept his belongings in neat order.

He'd attended therapy sessions every day. Group sessions three times a week.

And once, when he'd broken down- early days then, memories like shards of glass still tearing at him as he tried to piece together what he'd been told he had done- seeing the dark hair and eyelashes, the graceful face of a woman who worked in the cafeteria and looked like an older version of her, unable to tear his eyes away, and stopped moving in the lunch line with tray in hands, lump in his throat, lips barely parting to speak one syllable:

" _Mom_?"

\- he'd patiently borne solitary confinement.

He didn't remember, but he'd been told later that he'd stood still in the line, crowd gathering behind him and trying to jostle him forward. That the woman had eventually noticed, darted a few glances his way, before discreetly getting the attention of the guard on duty. And that when he'd been approached, he'd sunk to the floor, balling knees to chest and forearms lacing ferociously through his own hair, sobbing like a little boy and shouting, _Stop, stop -_

But that didn't make sense, really.

Because he'd loved it.

The woman had been gone when he came out of solitary. The lips were different- plumper. And of course, he'd never know what she would look like at that age, but that was her fault, not his. Her fault for being a whore.

But after all of that, and thousands of therapy sessions which, in time, he'd come to see he had needed, actually craved- hot tears, shaking shoulders when he finally, finally grasped the gravity of what he'd done to that girl- he was supposed to be better.

He'd written letters of apology. Dozens. Worked out the phrases over and over, forming and reforming them as he dreamed and exercised and filed books on their shelves. He'd always been good with words; he had a high IQ, his therapist had told him. He'd written and written, stripping bare an entire spiral bound notebook, and then another, until he got the words right.

He was sorry. He felt. He understood.

He'd lacked empathy for their daughter- for anyone- especially for women. Especially for dark-haired, pretty-eyed, petite women. He hadn't seen her for who she was when he looked at her. He saw someone else. He saw another world, another life, a past that he couldn't escape from, that rose up everywhere like walls in front of him and ripped him open even as he tried to get away-

He'd stopped writing then and thrown that sheet away.

He was sorry. He'd been ill. Sick and twisted in the heart. He hadn't meant to be that way, but that was no excuse. She'd been there, alone, and with one look he knew she was just what he needed. A second chance.

He hadn't intended for it to go like that, he'd just been looking for- for the warm sweetness of the past, the only sensation of comfort he'd known in his short life so far, from someone who, the way she looked in the half-light, could be, just for a few minutes-

He'd thrown that sheet away too.

But she'd struggled against him, and she hadn't been soft and magnetic and hadn't known where to touch and how to kiss, and she'd pushed at his chest and yelped, loud, but by then he'd tasted her and there was no stopping him. He'd needed it. And she wouldn't- she wouldn't just hold _still_.

If she'd held still, it might have gone differently. All he'd wanted, in his grieving, melancholic soul, was to have a second chance at that. It would never be quite perfect- his mother had been so perfect, clouded eyes and a nose dripping blood, white residue under her nostrils that she wiped away with a finger, smiling brightly at him- and twining him in her arms and not letting him go even as he tried to wriggle away, whining, shoving back- touching and exploring-

Of course, he'd thrown that sheet away. Balled it up with a fury that had made him study his hands, puzzled.

And he'd felt, somewhere under layers of calm recollections with his therapist and the melodic sound of her voice, a twisted, cold undercurrent that insisted: _You hated it. You hated it._

But that was just as confusing as his furious hands, because she'd always murmured, even as he fought her, how much he loved it.

On that autumn night near Boston Harbor, she'd fought, bracing the heels of her hands on his shoulders. So he bent her wrists backward until they were limp. Then she'd kicked at him, trying to force her way out from underneath him, so he caught one knee under his and leant all of his weight on it, until he felt the satisfying snap.

He hadn't planned to do those things.

He'd just needed to have a second chance. Their daughter hadn't had the white under her nostrils, but, he thought as he handed her the drink, this might be close enough. He wouldn't fault her, of course, for not being perfect. It was really his mother's fault that he had such exacting standards.

 _You hated it._

He'd loved it.

She was supposed to love it too. She was supposed to twine her arms around him, drowsy and delighted, and then slip away. She was supposed to be his second chance.

He understood, he'd written at last, what he'd done. Taken her away from them. He'd never atone for it. He was so sorry.

They'd written back- he wondered if they'd tried as many different ways of phrasing their letter as he had his- and said that they'd turned to God and He'd helped them find the depths of their souls, and that therein had lain forgiveness for what he'd done.

He'd read the letter out loud to his therapist and cried.

He'd meant it, every word of what he wrote, and he meant the tears, too. He understood that he'd caused pain, which, his therapist explained, was the same thing he had inside him.

So why wasn't he better?

After six years of flawless conduct, model behavior, he'd tasted fresh air and sunlight. He'd found his way to New York, money from well-meaning maternal grandparents left long ago in an account with his name on it, determined to start again.

He'd done everything right. Begun studying for the SAT, his therapist's insistence that he could actually be something thrumming with every flipped page. Maybe he could move on.

Maybe didn't need a second chance after all.

But he'd found himself frequenting restaurants, nightclubs, speakeasies, dressing more sharply than an aspiring college student would ever need to. One of the first rules of getting out was to get a job, to create structure, to have a purpose. He'd told himself his purpose was to get into college, but he wondered, later, if sinking into the shapeless fading of one day into the next had been a mistake.

In dim rooms with ice tinkling in glasses and softly sloping red lips, he'd found himself tracing the lines of dark brows and pretty eyes. They'd never be quite right, he kept telling himself, so he was safe. Just to look.

He was better now, after all.

But her eyes were so similar. It was too close to perfect. He'd stepped in to get out of the stinging, freezing rain, approached the corner seat, turned to hang up his coat, and turned back around to find those wide brown eyes peering stealthily at him. Then flicking away.

Like she existed, there, in that seat, just for him. Sent by the God he'd heard so much about. A gift, because he'd done so well.

Talkative. An easy smile- dazzling. Warm. She would understand. Not quite perfect, but maybe that was okay, he bargained, as a dark joy built inside him.

His relief at his impending second chance made him easy and confident in her company. She'd turned to find them a table, and he offered to carry over her drink.

It was ready in his blazer pocket the whole time; he'd opened it with two fingers while they talked.

He'd just been carrying it in case- even though he really only wanted to look.

Elation as they sat at a table for two. She'd love it. And then she'd slip away.

And then, then, he would be better. He was sure this time.

But after she'd started to blink more slowly and the lies came pouring out, anything to get her to a spot alone- the promise of a car, the urgency of a crying toddler- it had turned out that she was a whore, just like the one before her, just like his mother. She didn't twine him closer; didn't eagerly kneel down. She didn't even give him a chance to try to wriggle out of her arms. She didn't understand at all. She didn't want to.

So he didn't stay to watch her slip away, just as he hadn't stayed to watch the one before. Whores disgusted him.

And in any event, it was just a temporary weakness. It was her fault, really. He'd gone to all his therapy sessions and written his letters and meant it all.

There was a twisting coldness, still, underneath, that if he was really better he wouldn't, even now, just a few days after choosing the wrong one for his second chance- again- find his gaze sliding from one dark-browed face to another in the crowd, rejecting each one as not close enough to perfect, but seeking, always seeking.

But he was just looking. Because he was better. They'd let him go, so he must be.

He'd cried and apologized. And he didn't need a second chance. He was better.

 _You loved it._

 _You hated it._

Or maybe it was all a lie, all along.

 **A/N Part II: Re: the final section of this chapter, I promise we aren't going to spend more time delving into the mind of Blair's rapist going forward; I actually didn't plan to at all, but it occurred to me that I should provide some dimension to him since he's such a strong catalyst to our plot.**

 **Many thanks again for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: My dearest readers! My apologies, I meant to upload this before I left New York last night, but airport wifi was not cooperative =( The result is I'm uploading from London! So- cheerio, and I hope very much that you'll enjoy! I'm loving how these sections are coming together and I hope I delight you even a fraction as much as I'm delighted in writing them.**

 **As always, many, many thanks for reading.**

i.

 _January 14_

He doesn't bother with his coat as he crosses the short open space between the door of her building and the door of his limo. He slides in and slams the door harder than he means to, still groggy from the furious sleep he's just had, stirring hardly at all for six hours.

 _Just once, really: a sharp gasp in the dark, waking to her arm tensing, shying away, only partly conscious herself._

 _Up on his elbow at once, breath still._

 _Relief in her exhalation when her eyes adjusted to the dark, followed by a few more deep breaths. She'd pressed her good hand, on the other side of her body, against her face. Rubbed it over her eyes._

 _He was still waiting, blinking at her now too._

" _I hate these pillows," she whispered, finally, and shoved one onto the floor, settling back more horizontal with a muted yelp. A sidelong glance at him. "Sorry."_

 _Eyes closed._

 _The arm slid back toward him._

He rubs his own eyes as Tyler waits.

"Are you tailing me?" he asks drily.

A tired smile. "I had a feeling this might be where you'd disappeared to."

 _Tumbling back to consciousness with a nervous feeling in his stomach, he got to his feet as softly as possible – he was on top of the covers; she underneath – letting go of her arm last of all._

 _Two missed calls, four texts from Tyler:_

" _Apparently she can't be disturbed. Her parents turned away the NYPD."_

" _Update- have a tentative ID of him at GCT morning after. Think he skipped town days ago."_

" _Want to meet tonight? I'm available until 11:30."_

" _I'm downstairs. In your limo."_

"So," he says with a sigh. "What's the DNA issue?"

ii.

 _January 15_

She frowns dubiously, morning light cascading through the window pale and dull against the white robe from The Palace that she's wrapped around her sweater and lounge pants.

"Honestly, do they need my undivided attention?"

Eleanor wrings her hands, one finger coming up to stroke the wedding band she no longer wears, tracing her own knuckle instead.

Old habits die hard.

"Darling, it's just that they came last night when you were sleeping…"

"I'm not sleeping now," she points out, smiling up at the aesthetician who approaches with a footbath filled with steaming water that smells of essential oils. She has to brace her hands on the sides of the chair to support the effort of lifting her legs and placing her feet in the bath.

Her mother's eyes tick to and fro.

She sighs. "I have the mental capacity to have a conversation while getting a pedicure, mother."

Dorota is pressing a china teacup into her hand, also steaming. Loose-leaf chamomile with grated ginger and fresh lavender, a fixture for mani-pedi house calls. Blair didn't even ask for it.

Old habits die hard.

And so she is when the NYPD step off the elevator for the second time in just over twelve hours, same taut, bright smile in place. Would they like a cup?

iii.

 _January 14_

"The DNA samples were largely not viable. They weren't able to get a clear read."

Though it's not Tyler's fault, he finds himself glaring. "How can that be?"

She had semen in her hair, for God's sake. And obviously there would have been some trace of something between-

He backs out of that thought.

"Whatever there was, and there definitely were traces," Tyler says carefully, "she was out in the rain for several hours, and- " he glances away- "it would appear whatever parts of her body had… were left exposed. Just based on the degradation of the samples."

He looks like he's going to say more, explain himself, like Chuck might not understand. Might not already be biting his tongue almost to bleeding in fury.

So dosing her with the intent to kill wasn't enough? Forcing himself on her wasn't? Breaking bones and cutting her face? He didn't humiliate her enough by marking up her leg and finishing in her hair- he had to leave her like _that_ to be found?

"I see," he manages at last. "And the positive ID?"

iv.

 _January 15_

The detective's face is apologetic as he explains it's only a verbal confirmation; there's no security camera footage that confirms it, as yet. Grand Central is apparently ill-equipped in the closed circuit surveillance department.

"But you have reason to believe he's left New York?"

"The employee who identified him was quite certain. He didn't remember what he was wearing, but sold a person who he thinks was him a train ticket going upstate. Cash."

Violent criminals, he explains the way a kindergarten teacher describes the importance of sharing, tend to take flight more quickly when they re-offend after having served jail time, in order to elude capture or at least get the best possible head start. As convicts, they're aware they'll be prime suspects just due to being in close geographical proximity to the crime.

Blair watches the sympathetic head tilt, the self-effacing hand gestures that punctuate his wisdom; her broken hand has been unsplinted and is in the process of being tenderly administered to by an aesthetician whose primary trade is in house calls to diplomats, celebrities and the one percent. There's little concern about her discretion. And it's time to get these flat-tipped, raggedly cut nails, courtesy of Annemarie, taken care of at last.

"Assuming a similar pattern to the suspect's last offense, it's likely he's fled at least upstate, if not over the border to Canada by now. Last time, he'd left the city within twelve hours of his attack."

The aesthetician blows on Blair's fingertips, scattering the white dust left behind by her nail file.

v.

 _January 14_

His mouth is dry.

"The FBI?"

Surely not.

"Afraid so. The search crosses state lines. It's possible- and if you ask me, likely- that he's just fled upstate, to a city large enough that he'd go unnoticed, but small enough to fly under the radar of the search. But it's also possible that he's gone to another major hub in the tristate area – Philadelphia, Hartford. Maybe up into New England, but I tend to doubt that since…" he clears his throat awkwardly: "…he was in Boston. Last time."

Last time he raped and killed someone.

"But," Tyler pushes on, "I'd guess a smaller city within a few hours. Newark, Syracuse, New Haven at maximum."

He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, bracing one hand on the seat next to him as the limo takes a turn a little too wide.

"But the FBI?" There's no way this can be kept quiet now.

"It's just a matter of definition. The search now crosses state lines." Tyler lifts both shoulders. "Nothing to be done."

vi.

 _January 15_

"That's unfortunate," Harold says, tone warning the detective as their eyes hold each other. "It would be much better for the sake of propriety if we could be a little more clandestine."

"I understand your feelings, sir," the detective nods, steadily avoiding looking at Blair, "but I would ask you to remember that this man is now a repeat offender as well as a convicted violent criminal, and it's imperative that he be taken into custody as soon as possible."

Eleanor is less buttoned up. "You're talking about declaring a public manhunt? Are you even considering my daughter's privacy?"

"We don't intend to name her in any capacity, of course. She'll remain a nameless minor."

Blair chuckles, a smirk playing on her lips, at that. The detective glances down then, at the dark-haired girl he first met at Mt. Sinai last Friday. Her light, almost playful stoicism today is something he's seen before; and he's not a therapist and he's not a social worker, but from what he's seen, it's something that's much more dangerous than the alternative.

But maybe she's just playing strong in front of him. If so, she's doing an admirable job. She hasn't said a word since he arrived. Just tracked the conversation between him and her parents as though watching a film – a film that is regularly less interesting than the ministrations of the woman who hovers around her, fussing over her nails with equal studied silence.

Eleanor has her forehead clasped in one palm. "This is ridiculous. Can't you find him without all this pomp and show?" She waves a hand vaguely. "Just- track him down?"

"Speed and prevention of another assault are of the utmost importance here, Mrs. Waldorf…"

"We understand," Harold cuts in. Stern. "Is there a reason you couldn't have spoken with us about this last night when Blair was unavailable?"

The detective turns to her now, dark eyes under heavy lashes sliding up lazily toward him.

"Yes," he says. "There is."

There's a slight tilt of her head, almost challenging, in time with the trickle of water that spills from the foot she raises into the aesthetician's waiting hands.

viii.

 _January 14_

He's in the lobby debating whether to stop for a drink at the bar – not tired, now, after the deepest sleep he's had in weeks – when he glances up and sees the blonde hair and long legs of another Van der Woodsen.

Coat still draped over his arm, tie with its knot intact- looking like a noose- looped on his wrist, he takes a seat next to her.

"Charles," she smiles, looking down at the bar even as she greets him. "What were you doing out so late?"

He hides a smirk. If she thinks coming home shortly after eleven is late, she'll be in for a shock if the Basses and Van der Woodsens ever fully combine households.

Thumbing through excuses, he decides on the truth. "I was with Blair."

She turns at once, and he's startled to see she's been crying. Not that it's surprising under the circumstances, of course, but he's never even thought of warm, laughter-like-a-bell Lily crying. It unexpectedly stabs at him.

"Oh, my God. How is she?"

"She's…" _She's afraid of me for a few seconds when she wakes up and doesn't know who I am._ "She's very tired."

"Poor darling." Lily opens and closes her mouth twice before continuing: "I've known her since she was such a little girl. A laugh a minute, I'll tell you." She smiles fondly, eyes crinkling, no doubt imagining small headbands and tight ringlets, Peter Pan collars primly folded over perfect miniature navy cardigans and a child-sized sense of bored superiority.

"I believe it," he says.

He remembers a few years ago, arguing with Blair over some piece of chemistry data they'd just been tested on – ionic bonding, HOBr FInCl flashcards spin through his mind – when, in comparing notes afterward, they realized they'd given different answers. She'd scoffed and mocked and rolled her eyes, and in the end he'd produced their class textbook, deadpanning: "Moment of truth, Waldorf." When it turned out that he'd been right, she'd stared hotly at him for a moment, knocked the book out of his hand and told him prissily that he was a moron, then turned with an impressively grand hair flip- especially for someone who'd just been proven undeniably wrong- and stormed away, extravagant bow on her headband flouncing along after her.

A laugh a minute.

His eyes crinkle too.

One of her underrated qualities.

Lily is silent for a few minutes, and then: "Her parents' divorce must have hit her hard. I… I'm afraid I didn't do much in the way of reaching out to her."

"Your attention was needed elsewhere," he reminds her. Wayward Serena being hidden away at school, not to mention Erik spending all his free time in bed, and finally, not coming out one day until he was carried out on a stretcher, arms bandaged and soft restraints at the ready.

"And now this." She takes a long drink of the glass of white in front of her, and licks her lips in a way that suggests the wine is drier than she'd like. But she's almost finished with the glass. "She's certainly not had a good year. I can't imagine what she must be feeling. Or how she'll ever recover." She shudders.

He takes the single malt that Matthew pushes across the bar at him- wondering, not for the first time, if the bartenders at The Palace go by their full names in daily life, or if they're Matt and Steve and Vince and Andy- and fights the urge to tell Lily, then, what he said to her at Bemelman's last week. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to tell her, narrate it word for word, everything from the dull ache in his heart thinking about her up until she walked in to the moment he realized what a grievous mistake he'd just made.

He suppresses that urge, with effort, but what comes out isn't much better: "I found her."

She snaps her head around and stares. "You?"

And this story, he does tell her. The walk home- she raises an eyebrow but, refined to the core, doesn't ask which friend's apartment he was leaving- the call to the front desk for a car, the coat fluttering to the ground like an empty wrapper, the dried blood and the stumbling and how the way she went limp in his arms scared him.

And the missing stockings.

Her eyes are dull, glazed and lashes lowered, when he comes up for air. Gulps his drink.

"Charles," she breathes. "Thank God you were there."

He's tired of hearing that. Why does everyone want to focus on that?

 _I don't want you anymore, and I can't see why anyone else would._

His jaws clench, and she sees, and understands. Or thinks she does. She murmurs his name again and wraps an arm around his shoulder, drawing him in. He hesitates, stiff, before putting his head on her shoulder. It's the mirror image of the way Serena dropped her head onto his shoulder on Saturday- the way she's done so many times. It must be a Van der Woodsen thing.

But it feels good. It's the first human touch that's infused with warmth, warmth that's only for him, since-

He backs out of that thought, too.

Lily smooths his hair, pats his shoulder, like he's a child. A laugh a minute. Miniature silk ties and sport coats with tiny elbow patches. Meanness already lurking in his repertoire, but less refined, not yet able to be employed as a weapon – but with all the time in the world to learn.

 _When you were beautiful._

"You're a godsend, Charles," Lily murmurs, as if on cue. "I'm sure Blair knows how lucky she is to have a friend in you."

It's so flawlessly, painfully timed and executed that it could have been said by either one of them, with an expression of practiced innocence to accompany it.

ix.

 _January 15_

As it turns out, what they need is her.

The DNA testing was inconclusive, the detective had explained.

It was all Eleanor needed to hear to propel her into a frustrated lecture about how the NYPD is employing third-rate… scientists, or whatever they are- and they ought to stop spending so much money on educational programs for inmates and refocus all their resources on providing swift justice for those affected by their crimes-

"Enough," Blair had cut her off, quietly. Exchanged a look with her father.

They'll need her to identify him by sight once they catch him.

Harold's gaze darkens, though he understands due process. "I assume this would be in a completely secure situation where he has no awareness of her presence or identity. Not just a one-way mirror," he adds, as if the idea was akin to leaving Blair chained naked to a rock. Blair Andromeda Waldorf.

Pause. "We'll work with you to find the safest and most secure method."

"What if I can't remember?" Blair asks.

All heads turn toward her.

"What if," and her foot flexes against the fingers of the aesthetician, who has stilled and is looking up at her- _get a move on_ \- "I'm not sure when I see him?"

Eleanor's eyes flick to Harold, but his gaze is riveted on Blair.

"My love," he says quietly, and slowly, slowly sinks down next to her. "It's important that he be put away. That he can't do this to someone else. I know you understand that."

The world falls away, and it's just a girl and her father.

There's vulnerability in her gaze now. "But maybe I don't remember."

"Blair." It's a whisper.

Low, with wetness in her throat behind it: "Maybe I'm not sure."

His hand- also no wedding ring- comes up to fit perfectly against the curve of her jaw. His thumb dutifully avoids her stitched cheek.

"It won't take it away."

Her temple flexes and softens and flexes and softens as she clenches her molars together, willing the wetness away.

She closes her eyes, turning her face into her father's palm briefly, and then straightens her spine and tells the detective that of course she'll identify him.

x.

They hold the press conference at noon.

The chief commissioner of the NYPD faces the camera and speaks directly to him- no details of the attack, just that a minor was sexually assaulted last Thursday night- and appeals to him to turn himself in.

To think of the greater good.

To seek the help he needs.

And he steps down from the podium after fielding a few softball questions from the media, hands the notes for his prepared remarks to his chief of staff, and passes the case file that he's been gripping since yesterday back to the detective assigned to the case.

Two sets of photographs. One a lifeless body, pale in the morning autumn light, swollen joints and bitten collarbone and carved lower quadrant. The other, what was supposed to be a lifeless body, according to all signs and logic. A set of ribs, bruised and broken, quite obviously from a hard kick while she was lying down, if one is experienced in seeing these types of injuries. And spread thighs, torn flesh, a faint smear of blood.

Think of the greater good. Seek the help you need.

"I can't wait to nail this guy to a wall," he says to the detective as soon as they're a safe distance from the cameras.

xi.

No one at Constance or St. Jude's is under any illusions about the anonymous victim.

The usual bubbling of conversation and phones buzzing and giddy excitement about this weekend's party or what to wear to the gala next month is deafeningly silent. Instead of quips and jabs, the most elite students in Manhattan nod politely to one another, say "please" when they need to borrow a pencil and "thank you" for leaning backward to keep a door propped open for the next person and "oh, I'm so sorry" when they bump into someone in the hall. They glance around slowly, instead of exchanging dirty looks and secret smiles of glee.

Shoulders are tense underneath navy jackets; skirts are worn lower than normal; ties are knotted tightly and readjusted upward every period.

Not a single headband is seen.

He missed a text from Nate last night, and ignored it when he saw it: _"Have you talked to Blair?"_

Does sleeping beside her, anchoring her to reality, as much for himself as for her, count?

By lunch, just after the press conference- turned on without comment by a handful of teachers, turned off just as passively, _and now let's please turn to chapter sixteen-_ the paparazzi are beginning to gather out in front of the gates. They can't come onto school property, but that doesn't stop them shouting, beckoning, bulbs flashing and audio recording devices hitched up on their shoulders.

Serena sits down beside them at lunch, posture wound tightly under a loose crew neck sweater. Hair in a ponytail, uncurled, unbrushed. She doesn't say a word, but reaches for Nate's apple, pausing when it's an inch from her mouth to glance at him. He barely spares a glance back. She doesn't need his permission.

"My mom is a mess. She's just going on and on about how she's known Blair for so long and how cute we all were when we were little," Nate mutters.

Chuck eyes Serena, wondering if she'll mention her mother's doing much the same, but she's crunching into the apple like she's on a deadline.

"Well," Chuck shrugs. "We _were_ pretty cute."

That at least gets a curling of one corner of Serena's mouth. It flickers and dies, though. Anxious Serena is the quietest Serena, other than Sleeping Serena (although Sleeping Serena snores sometimes).

The paparazzi know her name and are using it. Nate's, too. Their shouting can be heard all the way in the side courtyard, where the three are now. Thank God for the brick wall between them and the street, or the idiots would be able to photograph them eating lunch.

 _Nate Archibald_ , one of them calls just then.

Nate rolls his eyes. "Can't they just go away?"

"Not when there's money to be made."

Finally: "I need a drink." She says it with her mouth full, and it's plainly directed at Chuck.

He tilts his head, chuckling. "Sorry, Van der Woodsen. My valet forgot to strap on my ankle flask this morning."

She rolls her eyes and flicks her wrist, offering the half-apple that remains to Nate. He glances from face to apple to face, and takes it.

She pulls her ponytail over one shoulder. "Gentlemen." Then she's on her feet and gone.

They watch her go.

Humphrey's entering the courtyard from the opposite side, and sees, too. He breaks into a jog after her, rounds the corner she turned seconds before, and Chuck and Nate are exchanging a glance when a roar goes up from the paparazzi assembled on the other side of the wall.

"Serena!"

"Miss Van der Woodsen!"

"What can you tell us about Blair Waldorf's health?"

"How's Blair doing?"

"Do you have a statement for us?"

"Is Blair recovering at home?"

"Any idea when we'll see her back in public?"

"Is her father in town?"

Nate freezes midway through his bite of apple. Chuck is on his feet, and Nate follows, back of his hand swiping his mouth. They stop at the corner and peer around discreetly. Serena's blonde ponytail jerks as she shoves through the crowd, who tangle and surge behind her in hot pursuit. Her shoulders are high against her neck, drawn in like someone crocheted her and pulled the stitches too tight. Chuck is willing to bet there are tears in her eyes.

Humphrey is returning from the halfway point near the gates where he stopped chasing her, and takes his place beside them, watching her trudge up the block.

Nate takes another bite.

"What's with her?" Walking _into_ the storm?

Dan's eyes don't move from the blonde ponytail- all three sets of eyes are trained on her. "I was about to ask you the same thing," he replies.

xii.

Bart Bass pulls out the chair to her vanity almost as effortlessly as his son.

Almost.

The flick of the wrist isn't as reflexive; it's clear he hasn't done this before. But he settles himself on it with the same ease, and even crosses his leg and folds his hands over his knee the same way Chuck does. Which earns a slight smile when he turns away to thank Dorota for bringing in the flower arrangement he's brought in with him.

Actually, it's not even really a flower arrangement. It's a lot of fuzzy-looking greenery, and ferns and graceful arcs of what appear to be bamboo layered in a somehow decadent way. To be fair, there are flowers in it, but they're dwarfed by the non-floral items.

"I hope you don't mind," he says, gesturing at it. "I chose it myself. I wasn't sure what your favorites were."

"They're beautiful. Thank you." She's nothing if not a good hostess.

"I wanted to see you and offer my support. I don't just mean with what was unfortunately an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to keep your name out of the press, but just to let you know that…" he falters now, clearly not having planned well enough what he'd say. "Well, I think highly of you and I'm confident you're strong enough to overcome any obstacle that comes your way."

He barely knows her, she thinks. Certainly less than a parent of one of her friends should.

Her smile is automatic. "Thank you, Mr. Bass. That's very kind of you to say." She pauses. "It was you who kept my name out of the press?"

"Charles asked me to. He asked me to try, anyway. He had his hands full, I understand, with collecting all the physical copies of the Post that he and the rest of your friends could get ahold of."

The smile twitches, but doesn't falter. "He did what?"

"Oh- I thought you knew." He pauses, but appears to decide there can't be any downside in telling her. "Charles and a handful of your classmates- Serena, Nathaniel, a few others- spent most of yesterday running from store to store and buying up their inventory and throwing it out."

She's quiet then. "I see."

There's a slight smirk on Bart's face. It's familiar. "After he commandeered the entire staff of The Palace to collect and destroy every copy that existed in our building, that is." He smiles. "I suppose he had a busy day."

 _How was your day?_

 _Enchanting._

She supposed he did.

xiii.

Her first thought when she thumbed through the pictures was how much the girl in Boston looked like her.

Hours later, after having looked at them maybe hundreds of times- flipping through robotically, feeling twinges of pain in the parts of her body that were injured on this girl- her thought is that she could have, should have, ended up like that.

Idly, the freshly manicured fingertips of her good hand brush against the stitched word on her leg. Alone in the dark last night after Chuck left, she'd nudged her hand past her waistband and the softness of her underwear to brush against the sutures, trace the letters, with the utmost tenderness.

The sutures were not prickly, as she'd imagined they'd be. She'd also expected she would have to be careful not to catch them on anything or jar them in any way, but it seemed that they'd begun to heal quickly- no raw edges anymore, just a puffy pinkness lining the joints of split flesh. They didn't hurt, really, unless a finger was pressed in.

Not that she tried.

But she grazed them up and down countless times, stroking letter by letter or the whole word in one straight pass.

Perhaps she was growing fond of the word that was carved, fond of its ugliness, its boldness and the way it had made Chuck speechless and Serena whimper and her mother turn white and grab her around the shoulders, with such uncharacteristic swiftness that she yelped and had to remind her that she did have two broken ribs, and Dorota say nothing like only Dorota can do, and her father… her father cried right there, on the spot, trembling lips not leaving her forehead for at least a full minute. "Mon ami, mon ami," he'd murmured against her hairline. "My darling love."

And she'd cried too. "Take it away, Daddy?"

"I'm trying, my love. I'd give anything for this to have happened to me," he'd vowed, a harsh edge in his voice that she'd never, ever heard before.

She'd pressed her face into his sweater then.

And later, pressed her finger into her stitches, just to see if it hurt. Until she squeaked.

And now, in bed with the copies of the photographs that she'd demanded the NYPD detective give her- prepared to burst into desperate sobs for them; she hadn't practiced emotional responses for the past several years only to lose them when they might come in most handy, after all- she stroked them gently through her pants. Long gray pants today, with a gray sweater. Where Dorota was producing these outfits from was a mystery. Blair Waldorf certainly had not owned this many sets of lounge clothes a few days ago. Blair Waldorf lounged in lingerie, silk pajama sets, soft cotton dresses- not long, single-colored pants that were too long for her and pooled in folds at her ankles, and conservative tagless sweaters, cut wide to obscure her figure, and suspiciously well-matched with the pants.

She didn't care, though, and that was jarring. Truthfully, she didn't notice until her mother complimented her that today was the first day she'd attempted to do something with her hair since the hospital, letting it dry in tangled waves the last two days since she came home. It had felt good: the bounce of the curls falling over her shoulders in that familiar way, and the aesthetician hovering over her hands and feet, had felt normal and familiar. She had felt like herself. She'd allowed herself, for a short period of time, to think that this hadn't happened to her. It had happened to someone else. _What if I don't remember?_

She could go back to being Blair Waldorf, fully, and scheme and manipulate and pillage her way back to her throne. With nothing dark lurking at the edges, no fear of sleeping and blinking in the dark, heart in her throat for split seconds before she confirmed who was looking back at her.

 _Maybe I'm not sure._

But she'd known that she couldn't go back, because those changes felt like part of her now, almost like she couldn't fully remember what had been before them: jerking awake in the dark, heart racing; letting her hair dry without so much as running a brush through it; not touching her makeup palette and brushes; not bothering to straighten her loose-fitting sweaters or even look at herself in the mirror.

She'd looked at the word in the mirror, though.

And there was a curiosity to it, then.

But she looks at the photographs now, and strokes her pinky in a slow circle around the "O," the center of it all, feeling a sting above her pelvis where the girl in Boston had her label carved, and there is- yes, there is: a trickle of fondness for it.

Because it's the worst of her injuries- the most shocking. The most unspeakable.

She was supposed to die. She had thought so, first grasped the reality in the emergency room when Dr. Lambright had explained to her that the level of exposure she had experienced was severe and, had she not been found, she would likely have had less than a few hours to live. She had thought, at the end of the rape kit while Annemarie photographed between her legs, face buried in Serena's coat while Serena ground out, as warm as she could be under the circumstances, every number between sixty and zero in her ear, that she'd gladly take death if someone offered it to her. Lying in her hospital bed, having sent Serena for Chapstick and a brush- like either of those was a dire emergency- she'd thought she might take out her IV that night when Serena was gone and leave, go back into the park, barefoot, and just let herself go. It wasn't passionate, or urgent, just… a viable option.

 _I need to die. Can you help me with that?_

Somehow, though, the pictures of the girl in Boston light a different sort of fire inside her.

The closed eyes, broken bones, familiar purple bruise that hurts to look at.

The knowledge that she was _supposed_ to die- according to him- filters through her. He had intended for her to die. He'd put enough of the drug into her drink to stop her heart. When he watched her finish the rest of her second glass, he'd been sure that was the last she'd ever have.

When he'd walked away from her, still and broken, he thought she'd never look at anyone else again.

It's disgusting, really. The finger trailing over the letters – on "E," now – was what saved her life.

She'd just dried her tears before she saw him, tall and quiet with an easy grace. Relaxed. He'd said he wanted to grab one last decent drink before the storm hit; they wound up at a table for two, with him ordering another and then her. She'd apologized, ever Blair the Gracious, for keeping him out later- it was starting to rain in earnest outside.

"You're worth staying out later for," he'd said, with a handsome, genuine half-smile.

Her smile had frozen. She'd eased herself out of her chair with effort and made for the bathroom.

Until she knew about the girl in Boston, she'd been sure this was when he had drugged her. Because she'd thought, naively, that he'd drugged her so he could hurt her.

Now she understood that when she gripped the faucet in the bathroom at Mark Bar, trembling, words delivered in a sharp, firm undertone racking her mind, and fought for control, fought to be something other than a weakling, fought for it to not matter, because _he_ didn't matter, fought to forget the kiss on her forehead and _all yours_ and the intertwining of fingers and laughing in the dark and sleeping, head on the other's chest, and then the reverse-

And lost-

That, in a way, she'd won.

 _I don't want to talk about what happened last night._

Because the red she'd vomited up had been the difference between being Blair Waldorf and being the girl in Boston.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Back at home! Sorry I was so lame last week- I ended up having way less time on my trip than I had thought I would.**

 **By way of apology, here's an extra-long chapter that I hope you'll enjoy!**

 **And last but not least, thank you again so, so much to all those who have reviewed, followed, and favorited. You all delight me! =) Happy reading.**

 _January 15, evening_

i.

" _Photographers everywhere."_

Nate's complaint buzzes against the polished oak of the table at Divine, the evening-hours-only restaurant at The Palace. He's having dinner downstairs tonight, sautéed spinach and bourbon-seared scallops and fingerlings with fresh rosemary steaming up from the plate in front of him. He's in a corner booth in the back, less because he cares about whether or not he's conspicuous and more because his father once asked him to leave the main tables- the better tables, more like- for patrons. Which he supposes is fair. And he's happy to be invisible; it's served him well.

He spears a forkful of spinach and half a scallop. Chewing it: _"Where are you?"_

" _Home now. Practice after school"_ ambiguous team sports, as usual- _"and no one else had trouble, but as soon as I came out they were everywhere."_

He's in the process of telling him to wear a different coat and dye his hair when Nate buzzes again.

" _Followed me home, I even got a cab. Almost shoved one out of the way to get in my door. They're still out there yelling about her."_

He sighs, looking around the quiet dimness of Divine, candles flickering on every table, including his. He'd probably break someone's camera if they shoved it in his face right now. But Nate's more patient.

Third buzz. _"My mom is about to skip town. She can't handle it after everything else."_

He swallows, surprised to find asparagus folded deliciously between the spinach leaves. Martin, the chef at Divine- again, he wonders, is he Marty in private life?- certainly knows his craft.

He texts Nate back: _"You're both welcome here if you need to hide. You could relocate after they've gone for the night."_

The reply is surprisingly quick. It's like old times, like nothing happened.

(You son of a bitch, I oughta kill you.)

" _Thanks, man. I'm standing my ground, but might need to take you up on that for my mom."_

In reality, he thinks, Anne has always been a breath of Burberry perfume away from full-blown neuroses, petting and preening and tutting her dear boy like a fuzzy duckling. It was adorable when they were six, suffocating by twelve, and downright prison by age seventeen. He's watched Nate battle internally, just a brief moment here and there, between struggling against the confines of her puppet-mistress style of parenting and loving her in the way that only a siblingless boy can love his mother. A dull ache from an empty, otherwise numb part of his heart has confirmed to him many times, watching Nate with her, that while he can't quite understand that conflict, if he could, he might choose love, too.

" _Offer stands,"_ he replies, stacking a bite of fingerling with greens. Martin is so good, the potatoes don't even need pepper.

A few minutes later, Nate buzzes again. He flips his phone open, patting at his mouth with an embroidered napkin (darker taupe against lighter taupe, bottom corners of an abstract, vaguely palace-like shape visible, folded in half as it is. The foundation.

It's not Nate.

" _See the press conference?"_

He finishes patting at his mouth and replaces the napkin on his lap- blue plaid sport coat that he could probably pass off as a school-approved uniform if he wanted- while he decides how to answer.

 _I knew last night…?_

… _And didn't tell you…?_

 _I saw the pictures days ago…?_

 _My PI is the one who tipped off the NYPD on who we're looking for…?_

He clears his throat like he's going to say it out loud.

" _Yes. Paparazzi all over school."_

Plus Nate and Serena. But she'll guess that anyway.

Right on cue: _"Following you guys?"_

He smiles faintly. _You_ _guys_. Just like old times, just like nothing happened.

" _Not me."_

" _Outside my building too. My mother is about to hire a sniper."_

He glances up through the candlelight, toward the entrance of the restaurant, right at the front of the lobby. Definitely no one inside- the staff take their jobs seriously- but he's sure they're outside.

He texts back with one hand, tines searching for another asparagus tip. _"Let me know if she needs any references."_

He catches a glimmer of blonde hair, spun gold in the candlelight, loitering at the threshold of Divine. She's just slipped around the corner, perhaps ducking behind the large pillar that's big enough to obscure her path from the elevator bank further up the wall, and is now in the shadow of another pillar.

Blair buzzes against his hands. _"The Times called to ask my father if we have any comment. They're rebooting my Night Out With profile from December."_

He snorts as he replies: _"Classy."_

It crosses with another text as he presses Send.

" _Like a zillion paparazzi outside!"_ Serena complains. _"Can't your dad make them go away?"_

He raises his eyebrows at her, but she hasn't seen him. She's leaning in the corner of Divine's entrance, back against the wall, shouldered into the corner where pillar and wide doorframe meet, neck craned to peer around the opposite pillar like a spy.

" _Sidewalks are public property in Manhattan, VDW."_

Blair: _"Paper sales mean more than keeping it classy, apparently."_

He swipes it away as Serena comes back, exclamation points matching the pout he can see on her face from here. _"Seriously like two hundred people out there! Way more than when I came home."_

With uncharacteristically flawless timing, Nate pops up on top of her: _"Wow. Paps gone, every last one. Maybe decided I'm not interesting."_

One corner of his mouth quirks. Or Serena is just more interesting.

He answers Blair first- _"Should I send the snipers there first, or?"_

He's in the process of replying to Nate when Serena cuts in: _"Seriously, nothing Bart can do? I don't want to deal with questions about Blair."_

He glances up to see she's idly drilling the tip of one shoe into the ground, knee swiveling like a flag blown by the wind.

" _Maybe they want to talk about you,"_ he punches with his index finger, other hand busy cutting fingerlings. _"Are those flats you're wearing?"_

He winks when her eyes find his, inhaling rosemary as he takes a bite.

He finishes with Nate while she walks over. _"They've moved the party over here."_ He holds up a finger at Serena while he finishes. _"If your mom wants to stay here and needs a discreet car, we can arrange."_

Blair again. _"We'd need an army of snipers at this point. You start assembling and wait for my word."_

Serena gets tired of waiting and sits down across from him. "No Scotch?"

Actually, he hasn't. All day.

He blinks at her. Clears his throat quickly. So much conversation, yet he hasn't spoken for hours. Certainly not because the fact surprises him.

"Doesn't go with scallops," he replies.

Blair, double-texting: _"Besides, I heard from a credible source that you wore out your Armani loafers trying to plug the dam on the Post yesterday."_

He reads it four times in rapt succession. Who?

Serena is shedding her coat, pushing it onto the bench beside her. "My mom is late," she murmurs, eyeing his plate. "We're supposed to go see Blair."

An angry growl comes up from her torso. He glances up from his phone.

"Sorry," she apologizes, never one to be bothered with prim manners. He takes her in, eyes tired and caked with a sloppy mascara job; no color on her cheeks or eyes or lips. Same crewneck sweater from school. And flats. And a growling stomach. He's seen this Serena before, a few times. There's no name for it.

He turns his fork over, tines down, and pushes his plate across at her.

"What?" she asks, not touching it, running a hand tiredly over her hairline, smoothing back wisps that have wriggled out of her ponytail.

"I'm full."

He's not full, and they both know it. He remembers the way she shoved down five bites of apple and then lost interest, handing it back to Nate with hardly more than the glance she'd used to ask for it.

They watch each other.

He smirks. "It's too good to go to waste."

"Chuck the Humanitarian," she mocks, eyes narrowed.

"Serena the Good Samaritan," he drags out, just as dry.

She exhales, almost a snort, with a slight smile, and pulls the plate in front of her. He waits for her to make some crack about wanting her own fork- _God knows where your mouth has been -_ but she's already swirling half of a fingerling through the rosemary-and-olive-oil garnish.

"I hate paparazzi," she deadpans.

"That's a shame," he replies, both thumbs texting Blair, "because they seem to love you."

She grimaces around a scallop.

" _They were Prada dress shoes, actually."_

Send.

" _Anything I can do to help?"_

Send.

"Charles and Serena, two of my most beloved people." Lily's voice is like stepping under a warm shower stream- probably from a rain head. She kisses the top of Serena's head, smooths his own hair, gives a quick squeeze to his trapezius like she's going to rub his tense shoulders. She spies Serena's fork moving and eyes him. "Charles, aren't you hungry?"

"Full," he beams back up at her.

Serena's flat blue eyes slide over him as she puts a large bite in her mouth.

"This is his," she informs her mother. The latter misses the hard sarcasm. It's muffled by the fingerlings. "He's sharing."

"How nice," Lily says, looking between them with only a little suspicion. "Like siblings already. I can just imagine you both as babies, sharing snacks in high chairs."

The front door of the lobby opens then and there's a burble of voices chasing whatever Palace employee has just crossed the threshold.

"Have you seen Serena Van der Woodsen?"

"Are you acquainted with Miss Waldorf? Does she ever spend nights here?"

"Have you seen Blair Waldorf since the incident?"

"Bart Bass is engaged to Lily Van der Woodsen, is that true-"

Lily looks over and sighs. Chuck and Serena exchange a grimace at the idea of the two of them as babies, sharing snacks in high chairs.

He winks at her again, twice, quickly. Just to keep up appearances.

Luckily, her flats are soft-toed and her aim is off when she drills him in the ankle.

"This is a nightmare," Lily says when she looks back at them.

Serena's mouth tightens. "Imagine how it is for her." She shoves her second-to-last forkful in.

Lily is holding a gift bag, he sees for the first time as she gestures to Serena, outlining their options for getting out of The Palace without being smothered by the crowd of bloodhounds out front.

Buzz.

It's not her.

" _Thanks, man. My mom says she's staying here, but she's talking about stapling the curtains together, which seems like a bad idea. I can't really tell if she's kidding. So maybe keep our options open."_

" _Done,"_ he replies.

Serena pops up as he's placing his phone back on his lap.

" _You'd better not be texting some girl right in front of my mom."_

He glances up at her in surprise. Her face is still flat, eyes half-lidded, as she drags the last scallop through the rosemary. Her clandestine texting game is stronger than he realized.

His thumbs hover over his phone, swirling as they consider and reject, split seconds each, several biting responses, teasing responses, evasive responses. The blank wariness in her eyes stops him.

Finally:

" _Nate."_

Lily kisses his cheek, reminding her to "call him if he needs anything," a lingering glance at his fond smile like she's trying to read him as she pads away, the clack of her high heels somehow muted with how lightly she moves.

Serena gets to her feet and looks down at him.

"Thanks for dinner," she says quietly.

He pauses, goes with a quip this time. "Can't have you looking frail on the cover of the Enquirer."

She almost smiles. "I'll tell her you said hi."

Buzz.

"Do," he replies without missing a beat.

Her footsteps are even softer as she follows her mother.

" _No. Just want this search to be over."_

He flips his napkin onto the table.

" _Operation Sniper Army commencing,"_ he types as he notes, one ear processing the information automatically when the front door swings open again, that the paparazzi are still buzzing at the door. Lily and Serena's plan to go through the back exit of Divine to avoid being seen must have worked.

Send.

ii.

Serena comes alive when she's with Blair. Other than that, she's dead.

She's never realized how much of a lifeline Blair really is.

Which is why she has half a mind to throw herself off the Brooklyn Bridge (or another bridge, in case Dan would read into that) for telling her she was on her own. For _leaving_ her on her own. For not trying hard enough to find her that night, and letting her fall right into this trap.

But not yet. Not while Blair needs her.

And Blair does need her- she does- she's crying into Serena's stomach, sobs coming out like whimpers, holding a pillow against her ribs because she's not supposed to be laughing or crying or moving like this, and certainly not horizontal and curled into a ball, face in hands, head in Serena's hands, every shuddering exhalation going on so long that she has to gasp to fill her lungs- which hurts.

"I'm tired," Blair says at last, heel digging at her cheekbone but artfully avoiding the stitches that start just beneath.

Serena rakes her fingers through Blair's hair, like her own mother did to her earlier, and again, just before she left Blair's room a short while ago when she'd realized she wasn't going to be able to hold back crying much longer.

She hesitates.

"Do you want some tea first?"

Lily brought a king's ransom worth of Mariage Freres, one of Blair's favorite Parisian teas. Serena knows for a fact there's a lavender chamomile in there that Lily intended for Blair to drink to soothe her before sleeping. She's pushed it on Serena enough times: sharing a cup, passing it back and forth on top of a cloudlike duvet.

"I'm too tired," Blair says, as though she's just realizing it herself. "God, I'm tired." She eases herself up, cringing visibly when she shifts her ribs in a way she shouldn't, and throws her best glare toward the greenery and bamboo on her dresser. It doesn't work particularly well, pink-nosed and puffy-eyed as she is, even her waterlines swollen from being rubbed so viciously. "I blame that thing."

Serena chuckles, nose wrinkled, as she gets into bed. Her mother knows both her and Blair well; at the bottom of the Mariage Freres bag, tugged out and passed to Serena before they made a run for it into the Waldorf building, was a set of pajamas for Serena, _in case you need to stay._

 _She didn't invite me._

 _And maybe she won't, but darling, in times like these you have to be ready to bend yourself around what the person you love needs._ She touched Serena's shoulder, wet eyes visible in the darkness, like she was about to say something like, _just like she would for you._

But she didn't have to, because Serena already knew, and turned away.

Not just like she _would_ for Serena. Just like she _has_ for Serena.

And where is Serena every time?

Drunk. Self-absorbed. Coked out. Fucking Blair's boyfriend. Running away. Ignoring her mother's mentions of the Waldorf scandal and divorce.

 _Bend yourself,_ she told herself as dread filled her stomach, trotting up the stairs behind her mother. But then she stepped into Blair's bedroom, and her life lit up again. Because people that describe Serena as free and uplifting, that think she's lighter than air and full of life, have it backwards. Even like this, Blair- _Blair_ is the lifeline.

And Serena is what sucks the life out.

"Bart doesn't have great instincts about flowers," Serena agrees, "true. He sends my mom these random planters of mini bushes and cactuses. Once he sent her a Venus flytrap." Erik had tried to feed caviar to it, and it died.

"That's disgusting," Blair says flatly, with a reverent shake of the head. "If taste were a church, he'd be excommunicated. Who gives someone bamboo, for God's sake?"

Serena clamps a palm over her mouth and nose, muzzling a snort. "Maybe he thinks you're a panda."

Blair wriggles down next to Serena. "Make sure your mother makes all decorating decisions, forever and ever," plumping her pillow- "amen. Tea in the morning," she requests- "can you stay?"

Constance and St. Jude's have cancelled classes for the next few days while the administration figures out how to handle the unprecedented presence of paparazzi on their doorstep. The parents of their matriculation certainly don't pay the tuition fees they do for their children to fend off harassment with one foot while pursuing an education with the other. Reading and homework, at a higher volume than normal, will be assigned via the school's web portal, until in-person classes can resume.

" _Chuck says hi," Serena said when conversation lagged just past pleasantries._

" _I understand he's been quite helpful with… over the last few days," Lily added, watching Blair carefully._

 _Blair was watching carefully back. Her bandaged hand slid over to the blank spot to her right, absently smoothed the duvet. "He has," she agreed._

"I'll stay forever," Serena tells her again when the lights go off, smiling at the promise. "Come here?"

Blair turns down the duvet and curls back up on Serena's stomach. She shudders again, a few tears, but clutches the pillow closer and stops herself. "I love you," she tells Serena in the dark.

"I love you." It warbles. "Blair- last week, when we had that fight, I'm really sorry I said…"

"Please don't."

Silence.

"It doesn't matter."

Serena swallows, eyes on the ceiling, Blair's cheek warm against her nervous stomach. "It was wrong," she says.

"I know you didn't mean it. It doesn't matter. It's forgotten." Her good hand bunches a little in Serena's sweater. "I love you," she says again.

 _I don't deserve you_ , Serena thinks, but says: "I love you more."

iii.

It's somewhere between "up too late" and "don't even bother going to sleep" when Serena tumbles to consciousness, aware of Blair crying again.

She starts once she identifies the sound, and is on the verge of grabbing Blair in her arms- brunette head still on her stomach- when she realizes Blair is asleep. Her tears are hot and wet, soaking Serena's shirt like she's been crying for a while.

"No," Blair murmurs, so low under her breath that Serena isn't completely sure she's not imagining it.

She reaches for Blair's shoulder- _aren't you supposed to not wake someone when they're having a nightmare?_ she wonders, frantic- but her hand pauses in midair when Blair says it again.

"No."

 _No._

Serena's lips part in panic. "Blair."

She touches her shoulder; Blair's face crumples and she jerks away. "Please," she begs, twisting her body into a tighter ball, a movement that Serena is certain is hurting her.

She tries her hair next. "Blair. Blair. Wake up." She pushes herself up on her other arm.

"Please don't…"

Blair's face sinks into her own palm. Hiding.

Serena freezes, the urge to cry sticking in her throat, but when Blair shifts again and the moonlight catches the evil black marks of her stitches, reminding Serena that there's a word stitched down Blair's thigh, she snaps. Blair won't relive this a second more than she can help it.

"Blair." She sits upright, catching Blair's head, and tugs on her. "Blair, wake up. Blair. Wake up!"

Blair's eyes snap open, and for a few excruciating seconds the brown eyes don't seem to recognize her.

And then they do, and she blinks, over and over, collected tears spilling, a faint hiss when the pain in her ribs registers.

But- and this stops Serena's heart for a beat- Blair doesn't look relieved to see her.

"Serena," she says. Her lower lip is quivering, stitches punctuating the movement. "Serena."

"I'm here. I'm here. What?" Blair's face crumples again. "Blair, what? Tell me."

Her fingertips run down Blair's arms; Blair doesn't look to have been aware that Serena has been touching her this whole time, and flinches away.

"I'm right here," Serena says again, hesitantly, removing her hands.

Blair swallows, touches the stitches on her lip, swipes at one eye, tucks hair behind one ear. Serena is about to sit up straighter, cross her legs to face her friend fully, when Blair finally opens her mouth.

"I think I should be alone right now," she says quietly.

Serena's heart sinks. "Okay. You want me to go?" She struggles to keep her tone neutral. _Bend yourself._

Blair's eyes never leave hers. They fill with tears again, unwillingly, but Blair doesn't try to blink them away. One eye overfills and the drops spill out onto her cheek. "I think it would be best right now," she says, just as quietly. "I can have the doorman call you a taxi…"

"No- no, that's okay," Serena says, hushed, forcing the hurt out of her voice. She waits for a beat before putting her feet on the floor. She turns the duvet back up to the pillow where she's just been lying. Fluffs them both.

Her flats are by the elevator; she picks up her coat, which is thrown over Blair's vanity chair, next to the Mariage Freres, a few feet from the bamboo.

"Call me if you need anything," she tries before she turns to go. Blair hasn't moved, hasn't turned, but now she does, slowly and carefully.

"I will," Blair says back, absently. Serena seeks her eyes, but they don't meet hers.

Serena backs up a step, free hand fumbling for the doorknob. "I love you," she tries again.

There's a pause, and Blair's voice is thick. "I love you, too."

Serena closes the door, and that dead feeling settles back around her again, familiar and terrible.

iv.

 _January 16, early morning_

The Waldorf penthouse is the ultimate paparazzi hot spot and like New York, a scoop never sleeps.

And so it is that Serena is photographed stumbling out of Blair's building at an ungodly hour of the morning, misery etched in her face too deeply for her to wipe away fast enough- it takes her more time than she's proud of to even realize she's got company- in pajamas with the backs of her pants tucked into flats, still clutching her coat to her torso. She stumbles out into the 20-degree weather, ignoring or not hearing the doorman's protests and inquiries about whether she'd like him to hail a cab for her, and does she want to wait in the private parlor behind the elevators until her car is at the curb, or perhaps go out the service corridor, because- Miss Van der Woodsen- Miss _Van_ der Woodsen-

She's not aware until her breath is coming out in white clouds, like powdered sugar into a mixing bowl or cocaine when someone sneezes in the middle of a line, the wee-hours darkness spinning around her and a cab driver already pulled over, front passenger window rolled down, that the flashing in her eyes is not, in fact, from the replaying of Blair's nervous tucking of hair behind one ear, shaking jaw, terrified eyes – that it is, in fact, the flash bulb of the small handful of New York's finest paparazzi approaching her on the sidewalk.

They're yelling questions right at her, attached finger-covers slid off of fingerless gloves, groping for pencils and pads, an overhead mic like a big shower loofah dangling in her face. She hears "Miss Waldorf" and "Miss Van der Woodsen" and "statement" and "condition" and "injuries" and "rapist" and "manhunt" and for one awful second her knees sway underneath her and she's sure she's going to be filmed live, vomiting her nerves all over the sidewalk in front of the Waldorf penthouse.

As if she's not done enough to Blair already. Jesus.

And that, finally, snaps the world into focus, and the cab driver has kindly reached across and shoved the front passenger door open, and she slides in, expressionless, palming the microphone as it tries to follow her through the still-open window and pushing it out, and turns, cab driver clicking on the meter, and says, as he rolls up the window for her:

"I have no comment."

v.

Of course, that's not what the headlines say.

Miserable Serena, the photo enhanced to saturate the shadows against the lightened paleness of the rest of her face, almost white in the flash bulbs' illumination, is in the hand of every New Yorker who gives a whit about New York society the next morning.

"BLAIR'S BEST FRIEND: DESTROYED!" reads one headline.

Side-by-sides of Lily and Serena leaving- Lily's paparazzi photo somehow effortlessly chic in a black coat, oversized collar shrouding her shoulders as she slips sideways into a black town car, caught in the last possible moment before her face disappeared before the opaque-tinted window: angled up, up, a last glance at the penthouse, eyes Waldorf-ward, lips poised, chin delicate, neck graceful.

"WALDORF RECEIVING VISITORS!" announces this one.

Arthur passes copies of these to Kathryn, who has them sealed in an envelope and dropped at Chuck's door by 6 AM- what, they put this to press in a few hours? What time did Serena leave? he wonders- with a ring of the doorbell, but no human there to greet him.

He texts Serena: _"Apparently breakfast comes with a side of VDW this morning. See them?"_

He expects it will take her hours to reply- no school, no need to be awake- but she responds in seconds.

" _Not the print, but it's online."_

No hostility for suggesting she's part of his breakfast? He pauses. Types slowly.

" _Everything okay?"_

He holds for several seconds before sending.

She replies, again, with businesslike efficiency.

" _Yes. Thanks."_

Exhaling, he tosses the phone carelessly in the air, and it lands with a soft thump on his bed.

He's pouring himself a Scotch- he's Chuck Bass, after all, and has catching up to do from yesterday- when Nate buzzes. He almost doesn't hear it, and crawls back onto his bed, childlike, tumbler in hand.

" _Paps back in full force. Even more than yesterday. Mom realized we don't own a stapler and is talking about having one couriered over."_

He smirks. _"Keep her off the internet."_ He's sure the Archibalds don't subscribe to trashy gossip rags.

" _Haha right."_

He takes a sip. _"I'm serious. Lily and Serena are all over the tabloids. They're out for blood."_

vi.

There's nothing they can do now; nothing anyone can do.

The manhunt has picked up full force: the FBI have set up temporary headquarters in Westchester County, with law enforcement contingencies from New York (City and upstate), Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania – and a representative from Massachusetts, just for good measure – convening to discuss tactics overnight.

They have boots on the ground by 7 AM, flooding the airwaves and all broadcast television stations with warnings, descriptions, mug shots, and instructions for how to tip off law enforcement of any suspected sightings, all underlined with a firm order to _not_ _approach the suspect under any circumstances, as he is, at this time, considered extremely dangerous._

Task forces of various combinations of detectives, prosecutors, grief counselors, criminal profilers- whoever is available in each precinct on such short notice- write and dispatch warnings; set up hotlines to funnel all tips back to the FBI-NYPD headquarters; paper public places with fliers. Coffee-and-sandwich food trucks appear in town centers, with grim-faced people murmuring about "not here" and "I don't know what I'd do…" lining up to pay for the paper cups and wax paper bundles.

Parents lock their children indoors and keep them home from school. Hands caress small heads, tiny sets of shoulders.

Sexual assault survivors cry silent tears, sending silent vows of solidarity to the two victims, and silent prayers that there won't be another.

People who have never heard the name Waldorf, who barely know the name Astor beyond the neighborhood in Queens, comment how pretty she is, how wholesome she seems, how pure and articulate and accomplished, and how unfair, how terribly unfair that such a lovely and kind young woman should have to suffer this way. And, with a cold firmness like it's already been done, that he _will_ be caught.

vii.

The first visitors arrive to her building before 10 AM.

"Miss Waldorf is not receiving visitors," her doorman tells them, again and again. "You'll need to come back when you've been invited."

Penelope and Hazel, both of them soberly pale and in school uniforms even though they knew yesterday that school was cancelled at least through the end of the week, blink back at him, unimpressed and meek at the same time. It's an odd role reversal when a doorman has authority over a pair of Upper East Side princesses.

"Could you just tell her we're here," Penelope asks, her voice cracking. "Please?"

"We're her friends," Hazel adds. "We've been here before, tons of times."

"I understand that, young ladies, but she is not receiving unsolicited visitors."

"Could we at least leave her these flowers?" Penelope holds up the arrangement, the kind that's meant to lie on its side, an ivy plant dotted with white flowers, wrapped in gold linen with navy stripes. The closest thing to a floral tribute to Yale as it gets. "Please? And just ask if she's willing to see us?"

He sighs.

Blair hears her mother yelping in outrage from down the hall and gets stiffly to her feet, cup of Mariage Freres plinking softly to her nightstand. She opens her door. "Mother?"

The doorman looks both ways when the revolving door deposits him on the sidewalk. He sees two peacoats (ivory and red), two plaid skirts that touch past the knee, on the corner. Shoulders low.

"Ladies!"

Penelope turns first; Hazel reels after her.

"Miss Waldorf will see you."

viii.

 _January 16, midday_

She's on at least her sixth cup of Mariage Freres several hours later, sighing in bed. She gave them an inch, and they took a mile.

First Penelope and Hazel, satisfying if a little irritating- like when you want a spoonful of ice cream but wind up eating the whole sundae, Blair thinks- in their effusive praise and apologies for their behavior last week. They have the intelligence not to snivel too much. There's a flicker in her stomach that tells her this is the moment to assert herself, to use their haunted, desperate expressions to her own advantage, to solidify them as her inferiors forever, but the whole maneuver somehow feels exhausting, rather than invigorating, as it should.

She's just tired, she tells herself. She didn't sleep enough last night. She'll take a nap after they leave.

But after they do- enjoying one cup too many of Mariage Freres, in her opinion- the floodgates open. She swears Penelope must have texted Kati and Iz in the elevator, because they're in the lobby by the time Penelope and Hazel are leaving, and they bring her twin orchids.

"So- after a while, the flower will fall off," Kati explains, and Blair bites back an eyeroll. As if she doesn't know how orchids work.

"But," Iz chimes in, eyes bright, "then it will come back, stronger than ever!"

"Just like you," Kati carries on as Blair's smile freezes.

"Stronger than ever!" Iz agrees.

 _Oh, God._

"Wow," she breathes, voice and smile tight. "Thanks. The symbolism would have been positively lost on me if not for your insightful analogies."

Iz beams; Kati flinches, but recovers quickly. They fall to praising her outfit (navy lounge set this time, changed after she showered to wash off the sweat from her nightmare, with a wide-cut neck on the thick sweater, which is faintly threaded with single strands of pink, white, green and sky blue here and there – ridiculous as an object of praise, by any standards), seeking her advice on their matching gowns for next month's gala, and complaining that Penelope and Hazel have stopped wearing headbands and told them, sharply, to do the same.

Pleading eyes turn to Blair.

"Keep the headband alive," she says firmly, with a brief nod.

They exchange grins then, and jostle at each other's elbows, breaking into a whisper, as they go.

ix.

She does sleep then, half-drunk cup of tea at her bedside, exhausted and comforted because it's light out and it's not as bad when it's light out. It's not as bad to be alone or close her eyes or both.

As she's about to doze, her phone buzzes against her wrist.

Serena: _"I heard everyone is lining up to spend a few minutes with you today, not that that's unusual."_

Smiley face.

" _Should I line up now, or wait until the crowd dies down and try to get a VIP pass?"_

The lighthearted sweetness, the inherent message that Serena is lucky to spend time with her, that it's somehow an honor, makes her want to cry.

But she doesn't, because she's Blair Waldorf.

She types steadily, evenly, each press of the thumb deliberate.

" _No need. I just saw you. Talk to you soon."_

x.

When she wakes, Dorota seems to know, and glances in guiltily. Blair looks up expectantly, late-afternoon sun now streaming in, though it's just 3:45.

"Miss Blair- there is crowd downstairs."

She blinks. A crowd?

"Line up to see you, as like you are queen." Dorota's face is pinched and wary. "And they all bring…" She flaps a hand. "Flowers. Many, many flowers."

Word must have gotten around that Blair Waldorf wants flowers. And what the queen wants, the queen gets.

"More tea," she says, holding out the cup. "Who's here?"

xi.

There are more than a dozen people downstairs; all schoolmates from Constance and St. Jude's, people she's grown up with, taunted and teased, bested in public speaking and races for class president, whose shoes she's mocked and whose parents' hospitality and admiration she's enjoyed. They file in one by one, Dorota announcing each name as though these are literally audiences with royalty, not short visits with a girl on bedrest whose facial stitches make most of her visitors struggle between staring and averting their eyes.

What's worse is that every visitor sings her praises.

"I've always admired your sense of self," says one.

"Your confidence inspires me. You really know who you are."

Clasped hands: "You're so intelligent. You're such an inspiration to me."

"Ever since your hard work on the NYPL benefit last year, I've been inspired to help my parents with our family foundation, and it's been really fulfilling. I wanted to thank you for being the catalyst for me to become a better person."

"You've been the glue that holds people together at school. Without your leadership, we wouldn't be accomplishing what we are as a student body; not even close."

What none of them says is that they're just here out of guilt, because most of them probably dislike her, and rightfully so- she's probably been cruel to and humiliated most of them at one point or another; made a point of proving them wrong in front of a teacher, and then smiled demurely when she received praise for knowing the answer; hit back with ten times the venom if they ever dared slight her in any way; berated them if they fell short during team athletics or group projects.

What none of them says is that they've probably wished her ill at some point in the past- not this, specifically, and not real bodily harm, but certainly their warm feelings haven't extended further back than the past few days.

What none of them says it that they had to really dig to find something positive to say about her, but they're Upper East Siders and there are expectations and damn if they weren't going to act like the society darlings they all are.

What none of them says is "I'm here because you were raped and I feel bad for you."

But it's what every single one of them means.

She snaps on her smile, pristine and flat-eyed, and thanks them all for coming, for their kind words; she had no idea, truly- and how gratifying it is, how inspiring- that she's been the source of such positivity and joy and growth for those around her.

Between each visitor, idly, her hand traces through her pants: WHORE.

"Miss Jenny Humphrey, Miss Blair."

Jenny shuffles in with a huge armful of gorgeous blue delphinium tied with a black velvet bow.

"Little J." She tilts her head. "All the way from Brooklyn?"

Jenny shifts her feet. "All the way."

Eyes dart from blonde to vanity chair to blonde. "Sit."

She does, and gets right to it: "H-how are you?"

It's a question everyone else has asked, and her thoughtful-yet-hollow response is on her lips when she remembers something that perks her up.

Jenny Humphrey doesn't matter.

Her eyes roll heavenward and back in real thought. "I'm in a lot of pain," she tells her, words clear and clipped. She hears Blair Waldorf, the real Blair Waldorf, speaking. Not Blair Waldorf the Tragic. "My ribs are broken. I have stitches, as you can see. I'm recovering from having been overexposed to cold for several hours. I'm sick of it."

Jenny's blue eyes blink back at her at a rapid pace.

"But," she goes on, "do you know what I'm more sick of?"

A slow shake of the head.

"People acting like I've caused such wonderful things to happen to them." She keeps her placid expression in place. "I'd think it was a joke if I didn't know better. They're serious. Suddenly I'm Blair Waldorf, the next Mother Theresa."

"Well…" Jenny fumbles a little. "I mean, it's not like you've never done anything good for anyone."

"No," Blair agrees. "But I lie and manipulate and use people and make sure they know they're beneath me, through any means necessary. And I'm not ashamed of it. And now-" just briefly, the expression slips- "now, they think I'm beneath them, and any respect I've built has been replaced with pity. Now they have to prop me up with nice words, real or imagined doesn't make much difference, because they think I'm fragile and broken and helpless."

Jenny is silent, blue turtleneck belying that she's breathing a little too quickly. Nerves.

"So." The smile deepens. "Go ahead, Little J. Are you going to tell me how great a role model I've been for you? How I make you want to be a stronger, smarter, kinder person? I'm listening."

She picks up her teacup- left hand floating out from under the duvet, where Jenny hadn't realized it was- and takes a sip.

And Jenny takes a deep breath, eyes shifting, and licks her lips.

"You did," she starts, "make me want to be stronger. You did make me want to be smarter. But not because you were a good person. Because I wanted to be like you- and other than at the very beginning, I wasn't blind to what that meant. But I didn't… care." She swallows. "I didn't care, because for a long time I wanted to be like you anyway. I didn't care that I knew you weren't a good person."

Blair smacks her lips, the gesture affected, but Jenny's not experienced enough to realize that.

Brown eyes sparkle.

"And then?"

Jenny's cheeks flush. "And then I saw that you'd never be my friend, and I realized finally… that if I wanted to be like you, I'd have to learn how to be cruel to other people. And…"

Blair waits.

"And I did."

Game recognizes game. "You sure did. How did it feel?"

Jenny looks down now, teeth biting into her lower lip, and closes her eyes. "It felt good," she admitted.

"It does, doesn't it." She takes a sip. "And you weren't regretting it and wishing you'd been a better friend to me over the weekend and planning how you were going to apologize."

Under the blue turtleneck, Jenny's heart pounds a little. She remembers buying a new pair of tights that screamed "I'm the New Blair Waldorf" on Sunday, dragging a white-faced, silent Dan out with her for sandwiches because he was moping in his room all day- and spotting them in a shop window, his eyes not even rolling as he followed her in, looking over at him as they left, small shopping bag in hand, startled to find him almost in tears, stopping him on the street and turning him toward her, demanding he tell her what was wrong. A long, hard look over her face, jaw set- _"Jen, I love you, you know that?"_ \- a palm on her shoulder dragging her to his opposite side, putting himself between her and a leering older man on the walk back to the loft, head in his hands while she made him a cup of coffee after they got home. All those wordless, fraught glances all weekend that she didn't understand until Penelope, tear-stained, shoved a copy of Page Six into her hands as soon as she planted her feet, formidable in tall black heels and her new stockings, on the Met steps the following morning.

 _Did you know?!_ she'd demanded of him in Chuck's limo, even though she knew the answer already, knew it as soon as she saw the spread. Knew that every time he'd looked at her on Sunday, all he saw was Blair Waldorf.

"No," Jenny says slowly, finally. "I was picking the perfect outfit to be the new queen."

A smirk, now. She raises her teacup in salute and then drains it.

"Just wishing I'd disappear?"

The blonde licks her lips slowly, clearly deciding whether to say it.

"Hoping you'd be in school so I could throw it in your face." She can't meet Blair's eyes. "But that isn't what I came here to say."

She came to say she's sorry for telling Nate, and for thinking she's better than anyone, because that's not how she was raised, and not a version of herself that she even recognizes, and this isn't because of what happened, but because she knows she can't live in this world this way- it's just not for her, not like this. Game also recognizes when it's out of its league.

She doesn't get the chance. Blair shrugs. "At least you were honest," she says, "which is more than I can say for anyone else so far."

Jenny finally looks up. "I wish this hadn't happened to you, Blair," she whispers.

In the same bored tone of voice she uses to order a refill on ice water: "Me, too."

Jenny's straightening her sweater and tugging up her ill-fitting jeans- what awful shoes, Blair comments to herself, absently- when Blair's voice hooks her back.

"Little J."

She turns.

"Thanks for the delphinium. They were a favorite of Grace Kelly."

"That's why I brought them. I Googled her favorite flowers." A small smile, and a nod, like she's bowing before royalty and she knows it.

Dorota shows in a pair of underclasswomen from Constance, chirping in unison like caffeinated chipmunks with calla lilies in hand.

Blair signals for another cup of tea.

xii.

" _OMG."_

A minor flood of panic races through him. Stitches split open? Pneumonia from being outside so long? Is it possible a broken rib might have fractured a lung at this stage?

But then: _"I'm surrounded by sheep. I've been having visitors all day and they're all telling me how inspirational I am for them to be better people."_

His heart sinks in relief. He chuckles, sliding his phone open. _"So I should stop working on this sonnet about your many virtues?"_

" _Dorota told me Brooklyn is downstairs in the queue. Can you imagine?"_

This earns a real snort. _"He probably wants to file a complaint because you're making him miss school."_

She texts back a few minutes later. _"Are you coming?"_

He licks his lips. Of course he knew that people were lining up to see the Waldorf darling- and not from still-silent Gossip Girl, but from the real-time updates on the most aggressive tabloid sites. Photos of stiletto-tottering girls and tailored-trouser boys tripping into her building with towering and sprawling floral arrangements, like true Upper East Siders, a few of them so comically large that they could fit through neither the revolving door nor the side doors of her building and had to go around the block to the delivery bay.

He was tripped up between not wanting to be photographed, not knowing if she'd want him to visit publicly, and not wanting to show up unannounced. That's not where they are. He thinks.

He shoves away the problem set he was only nominally working on anyway and reaches for his scarf. _"On my way. In traffic."_

He can almost hear the sweet, toxic hum of her voice when he reads her response, on the heels of his text to Arthur to bring the car around: _"How very humbling it must be to live among the unwashed masses of Midtown."_

The corners of his mouth turn up. _"Anything I can bring?"_

"Waldorf penthouse?" Arthur asks when he slams the door, gloves twisted in one hand, forgotten in favor of texting.

"Yes."

Buzz.

" _Quick-acting poison and the antidote."_

He blinks, thumbs tense.

" _I'll flip you for it when you get here."_

"Let's get on Madison, and then one stop," he tells Arthur as they pull away from the curb.

xiii.

Blair is in with, of all people, Prince Theodore when he arrives. Dorota tells him- or, rather, remarks to herself, with a slight grumble that's probably not entirely appropriate when one considers she's referring to royalty- that he's taken more than his fair share of her time. She shakes her head with a frown.

He nods knowingly, disapproval clear on his face as well, as if to say, _I know, but he's descended from both the Plantagenets_ and _the Hapsburgs. What's one to do under such circumstances?_

She's asking him if he'd like a drink, showing him into the sitting room, and there sits none other than Dan Humphrey next to Nate.

And next to Nate, what he briefly thinks is another person, is in fact an absolutely gigantic arrangement of pink peonies. There must be over a hundred blooms, in a tall crystal vase with a bottom two inches thick. They're of varying heights, but all in perfect, enormous, luscious bloom, with scattered ferns and baby's breath punctuating the mounds of pink.

He stares at it for a moment. Not at Nate, but at it.

Nate's eyes are on him, though.

Dan looks from Nate to Chuck tentatively, not sure if Monday's team effort was a sound reconciliation after _you stay the hell away from me, Chuck_.

He nods at Chuck's hand. "Did I miss the memo or something?"

Nate turns to him affably. "Peonies are her favorite flower." He pauses, glancing sideways, not quite at Chuck, whose coat Dorota is taking. "Everyone knows that, apparently."

The corner of Dan's mouth twitches wryly. "I guess I'm not part of 'everyone.'"

Chuck avoids Nate's oddly accusatory gaze. They're flowers, for crying out loud.

And anyway, he's willing to bet he's known they're her favorite longer than Nate has.

"That's correct," he agrees. He nods at Humphrey's offering. "What is that, anyway, Humphrey? Your pencil box?"

Dan holds up the tablet-sized box, wrapped in pastel green paper with prints of the Eiffel Tower and finished with pink ribbon. "Serena told me she likes macaroons."

He does not add: _When I finally managed to get her on the phone; and I've barely spoken two words to her since Monday._

Nate smiles. "Hey, that's really nice. She'll love it."

He stops himself from laughing, but only with strenuous effort. Sure. Fattening snacks while she's not allowed to get out of bed. That probably came from a corner market, no less. She'll _love_ it.

He squeezes a little on the wrapped stems of the hand bouquet of pink peonies he brought- nothing but pink, no filler, no lesser blooms. Just silky pink perfection. Just Blair.

But he doesn't miss the faint trace of arrogance in Nate's smile when he watches Dan go upstairs, eyes trailing back down, ghosting over the bouquet in Chuck's hands that's a fraction of the size of his own.

Chuck takes a seat on the chaise, kicks off his shoes and puts his feet up, languid posture a deliberate contrast with Nate's straight spine in a striped armchair- the same one Eleanor pressed him into, patting his knee and singing his praises, he's tempted to tell Nate- and rests the bouquet on his stomach.

"You can go first if you want to," Nate says suddenly. Chuck glances over, wondering if that's supposed to be some kind of biting virginity reference. If so, it has no teeth.

He shrugs. "Doesn't matter when I go."

He wonders if she invited Nate or if he just showed up.

"I don't mind," Nate persists, and Chuck realizes why. It's past six; they're probably the last for the day.

He suppresses a smirk. "First come, first served." _And while we're on the topic, size doesn't matter,_ he adds silently with a glance at the towering peonies on the table beside Nate's stiff shoulders.

xiv.

Nate, it turns out, spends less time with her than Humphrey does. Although, Humphrey does follow the prince's lead and overstays his welcome. When he comes out, he looks like he's been crying, waving a hand at them- _Bye, guys_ \- and accepting his coat from Dorota, heel-toe-ing side to the side with one foot, the other planted, in front of the elevator until it dings open.

"Mister Nate," Dorota says then, waving Nate along. "Mister Chuck," she says to him over one shoulder, "I apologize for long time."

Nate doesn't look back at him as he gets out of his chair and collects his peonies.

"I'm happy to wait as long as necessary," Chuck says pleasantly, aiming it at Nate's back- honestly, what is wrong with Archibald? Is he really only capable of wanting Blair out of guilt?- "or come back tomorrow if she's too tired."

"No, please, stay," Dorota tuts, ushering Nate up the stairs. "I make you drink when I come down."

Nate does glance at him then, struggling with the shifting stems, in time to see Chuck's arm come up to cushion his head. It's funny- all the times he's lounged in the Waldorf penthouse, been in her bedroom alone with her, many while they were dating, and it was never an issue. Now she's not his girlfriend, and their circumstances have nothing to do with competing or fighting about that, and suddenly it's all about claiming the girl he could never be bothered to care about when he had her. He has no doubt that seed was planted, actually planted, when she herself said _Leave, Nate_ , the other night in the hospital. The incredulity in Nate's blue eyes had struck Chuck as beyond ironic. Suddenly he's Attentive Nate again, but only, always, when there's a chance she might not be throwing herself in his path.

When her bedroom door clicks open upstairs, he makes sure his expression is neutral. Nate has been his best friend since kindergarten.

But Nate doesn't even look at him.

"Goodnight," he says with a nod.

He guesses Blair didn't swoon and coo at him, because Nate barely checks. "Goodnight."

He stifles a sigh as Dorota waves him up, feeling blue eyes on his back because she doesn't bother escorting him.

Blair rolls her eyes when he lets himself in. "Where's the poison?" she demands in greeting.

"Sorry, the apothecary was fresh out." He tilts his head sympathetically. "I brought these instead." He holds up the bouquet, feeling his phone buzz in his interior pocket.

She smiles a little. And reaches for them, to his surprise. Nate's are on the dresser behind him; others are heaped on every available surface around the room, including the floor. It's like she lives in a meadow.

"Thank you."

He nods at the unwrapped box, green paper and ribbon heaped on top, on the vanity beside his chair. "I saw Humphrey brought you macaroons."

She wrinkles her nose. "They're made with enriched flour. And they're cotton candy flavored. Whatever that is."

"Well," he muses, mocking thoughtfulness- another buzz against his chest- "I suppose it's the thought that counts."

"Did you read that on a greeting card?" She brings the blooms to her nose and inhales.

He regards her for a minute. "I'm not sure if you've been looking online at what's being posted…"

"No, but I can imagine. 'Waldorf Becomes World's Youngest Recluse' and so forth. Throngs of adoring classmates. What a beacon of wholesomeness and good citizenship."

One-shoulder shrug: "Pretty much."

Buzz.

"It's a runaway train. There's nothing I can do about it now." She looks down. "I suppose once they catch him the interest will die."

He doesn't know what to say to that. Yes, the interest will die, but her name will forever be synonymous with this. And this is not The Blair Waldorf Story, not the way it was supposed to be.

She chuckles then. "Little J was the only person who was honest with me today. She at least told me that when she saw I wasn't a good person, she decided it was fine- even necessary- to destroy me."

"She learned from the best."

"That's tighter criteria than I even have," she agrees. "Mine is more like, 'I saw that this person wasn't entirely to my liking in some way for any period of time.'"

She's been polite in ignoring the buzzing, but she's definitely heard it, and when it happens again, she rolls her eyes.

"Pressing business?"

"I'm sorry," he apologizes, fishing it out.

Tyler:

" _Where are you? Need to talk."_

" _News. Big news."_

" _Not good news."_

" _Or maybe it is. Call me ASAP."_

"Late for a rendezvous…?" she teases, but it doesn't come off as light as she might have wanted. He looks up, and she swallows.

"No- my father," he lies smoothly, hoping that will cover the way he froze when he slid his phone open.

"Do you need to go?"

He stands. "If you don't mind, I'll just call him quickly."

xv.

He's only gone for a few minutes, but when he comes back, his face is a little too relaxed, his movements a little too sanguine, as he drops into her vanity chair with almost a flourish.

She looks him over. There's a faint flush high on his cheeks. She's seen that before, but she doubts he's erotically charged at this moment.

"Everything okay?"

His smile is a little too easy.

"Yes. Nothing to worry about."

Her thumb rubs over the ribs of stems wrapped in deep sage ribbon. "Do you think they'll catch him soon?"

He's tucking his phone back into his interior pocket, too carefully. "I think so." He says it before his eyes slide back to her. He clears his throat. "I'm afraid I do have to go."

"Bart needs you? Is he funding our sniper army?" she guesses.

He nods, a half-smile. "Arthur's bringing the car around."

His jacket sleeve got mussed when it collided with his lapel as he put his phone away- pushed back at the vent, the end folded back a little- and he doesn't even notice. She looks at it, at his carefully careless posture.

"Bart visited me yesterday. He told me what you did with the Post. Running all over town."

"It didn't help," he says after a second, "in the grand scheme."

They hold each other's gaze. She licks her lips. "Who was on the phone just now?"

"No one." He stands up. "I have to go. Call me if you need anything."

There's a tremor- "Chuck." - and it stops him.

He sees it, looking at her, the way she's glancing toward his chest and then back at his face, uneasy. Fear. He wants to go over and reach for her hand, and he knows she'd give it to him, and squeeze her fingers, run his thumb over her knuckles. But he's clammy with sweat and doesn't want to get too close to her, in case she somehow feels his heart pounding.

And he needs to focus on getting the hell out of here, and holding hands is not going to help with that.

"My father is annoyed at me for something," he improvises, "what else? I just have to go deal with him."

She doesn't believe him, but gives a smile. "Let me know how it goes?"

He nods, smiles back. As he turns to close her bedroom door behind him: "Don't worry about anything."

She doesn't answer, just stares, eyes wide, as he shuts the door.

He texts Tyler in the elevator. _"Got out as quick as I could. ETA 15. Meet me on the corner of Madison and we'll go up from the underground garage in case of photographers."_


	11. Chapter 11

**Hello, beloved readers! I hope very much that you'll enjoy this chapter** **I'm really enjoying building interaction and dialogue between different pairs/groups of characters, especially because these dynamics will continue to become more important as we work our way through the story. Miles to go before we sleep!**

i.

 _Wednesday, January 16 – evening_

It's only eight, but the ringing off the hook of the downstairs rotary dial phone- cream lacquered porcelain with polished brass- is infuriating. The first wave of phone calls started in the late morning; socialites, friends of her parents, even the Astor side of the family that hasn't spoken to Howard or Eleanor or her since the embarrassment of the divorce; calling to check in on her, asking if they could speak with her, if there's anything they can send over. A few of them have already dispatched flower arrangements, they mention.

"Miss Blair is not available," Dorota informed each one. "You please call back later."

And she kept on, snatching the phone as quickly as possible, consolidating the callbacks and pushing them later and later in the day, such that after Chuck has gone, Blair having given orders that once he arrived, no one else was to be let up after him- no, not Mister Nate or Miss Serena- she has less than an hour of peace before the phone starts up again, shrill and punishing as her mother.

"I'm not speaking to anyone else," she yells to Dorota, coming out on the landing. "Cut the cord if you have to."

Just a few moments of being out of the confined space of her bedroom deconditions her nose, and when she goes back in, the smell of flowers is cloying.

She flings the door open again. "Dorota!"

Dorota is already on the stairs. "Yes, Miss Blair?"

"Please get rid of these flowers."

It smells like a funeral home. And maybe that works- she's half-dead, and people have been saying half-true nice things about her all day, so it might as well smell like a wake in here, too.

She lingers inside her doorway, and Dorota pauses behind her. "All of them, Miss Blair? Should I throw away?"

"I don't care." She looks around- calla lilies and hydrangea and geraniums, lilies of the valley, orchids, delphinium, peonies, roses (some people have no imagination) and of course the bamboo (while others have far too much). Every last one a testament to kind, inspirational, font-of-generosity Blair Waldorf. "Just get rid of them. I'm taking a shower," she says, turning away and shrugging her shoulders to disguise a jump when the phone trills again. "Please just get rid of them before I come out."

"Yes, Miss Blair." Dorota reaches for Nate's first; it's closest to the door.

Blair pauses at the threshold to the bathroom. "And bring a vase up for those," she adds, pointing at the hand bouquet of pink peonies, stems wrapped in green, lying half-forgotten on her duvet.

ii.

"I thought you were sure," Chuck says, topping off his Scotch- he took too big of a gulp when Arthur finally told him what he had, locked safely inside 1812.

"You can never be _sure_ ," Tyler enunciates.

He rolls his eyes. "We were confident, you said. That he skipped town days ago. Within twelve hours of the attack, remember? Just like in Boston?"

He swallows down another mouthful just as big, and it burns his throat. He bites, hard, on the inside of his lower lip.

"Look," Tyler says slowly, watching him even as he opens the new file folder he brought, "I would have bet money- and lost- that he had bailed."

He picks up the first of the photos, grainy black and white, shot through a shop window, handing cash to the salt-and-pepper man behind the counter. He flicks it to face Chuck, laying it flat in front of him.

"But you were wrong," Chuck says, without looking down, Scotch still poised before his mouth.

Tyler's temple ripples as he fights for patience. _So was the NYPD_ , is probably what he wants to say.

"Yes," he replies. "I was."

"One-time customer," Chuck muses, looking down at the photo, free hand pinning the corners in place, echoing what Tyler said to him as they descended into the underground garage, heavy door lowering behind them, street noise and lamppost light falling away, Tyler's finger rifling the corners of the file folder's contents absently in the dark.

"Dropped it off Saturday morning."

He flips the next photo, timestamped 10:37 AM 1/12.

He was asleep then, probably: Blair's hand wrapped between both of his.

He slides the top picture away to look at the timestamp on the bottom one, with the guy paying cash: 11:14 AM 1/14.

Monday. "He sprung for next-day service." He's dripping condescension.

"It's possible he might have split then," Tyler offers. "That was the day the Page Six spread came out. He might have seen it."

He shrugs. "If he reads society gossip rags, which I somehow doubt." Then something hot clenches his stomach. "Where is this?"

"44th and Park."

He exhales slowly, bringing the Scotch back to his lips and draining the rest of the glass. He was in Midtown then, running from store to store, hauling stacks of The Post to the nearest trash can. 11:14 AM on Monday- Jenny refreshing her browser, Nate complaining there were way too many indie bookstores in the East Village, Serena tugging her brim lower to avoid sympathetic stares and insistent questions. Him, sweat slipping down his spine despite the chill, up and down the broad sidewalks of Midtown East, head down, gaze skittering from storefront to storefront, not looking at a single face.

They could have crossed paths and he'd never have noticed. He wasn't looking. The possibility of the guy still being in the city wasn't even in his orbit by then.

"So the Grand Central employee who said he sold him a ticket upstate?"

"He was never sure it was him. It was a tentative ID. And we didn't have any photographic backup."

Tyler lays out the next picture: coming out the shop door on Monday, wire hook hanging from two curled fingers, hand slung carelessly over one shoulder. Self-contained confidence in his posture.

"So our guess, then, is this is what he was wearing Thursday night?"

Tyler flips the remaining photos over- copies of the original surveillance footage from the galleries on the same block as Mark Bar- and lines them up over what little they can see of what's in the clear plastic bag.

"It's not a perfect shot, obviously. But it looks like the same suit to me."

Chuck's fingers drum, restless, on the counter next to his empty glass. He needs to slow down.

"The dry cleaner recognized the mug shot and sent in a tip this afternoon. It's been 48 hours; he might well be gone by now."

"He's not gone," Chuck murmurs, running a hand through his hair, fingertips too harsh on his scalp as he looks down at the upright, easy posture, freshly dry-cleaned suit slung over his back.

"We don't know yet- it's very possible he might not be," Tyler agrees. "So right now we're working on pulling surveillance footage from any source we can get- these came from the high-definition camera on a bank across the street, for example; most independent businesses don't have good surveillance, if any at all- to trace all the possible routes he could have taken, and once we find out which way he went at the corner, we'll do the same for the next block, and the next, and start showing people his photo, and so forth." He eyes Chuck, whose hand is now clasped at the base of his neck, fingers squeezing up and down from hairline to shoulder. "It's not a perfect system, and it will take a little time, but we'll be able to figure out if he's left, and if so, when."

"He's not gone," he repeats.

"Why do you say that?" It's clear from Tyler's tone that he doesn't disagree.

Chuck shrugs. "He raped a girl and thought he killed her- might or might not know yet that she survived- and instead of skipping town, stuck around and got the suit he was wearing dry-cleaned. It seems like someone who wanted to avoid being caught would get out of dodge as soon as possible and certainly not…" His lip quivers in disgust. He reaches for the Scotch bottle, clenches it, white-knuckled. "Keep the suit and get it dry-cleaned." _For fuck's sake,_ he finishes silently.

The PI nods. "That's the logical conclusion. A lot of times there's no logic to how these things go, though." He pauses. "Maybe he got the suit dry-cleaned so he could dispose of it with no evidence to be found."

"Maybe," he says against the rim of his glass. "But now that it seems as likely as not that he's still here…?"

"They're holding a press conference at 11 PM. On the news. They wanted to announce it when mostly adults would be watching so they can avoid a panic."

"Relocating the headquarters to Manhattan, I hope." It was ridiculous that it was in Westchester to begin with.

"Already underway. And there's tight surveillance at all points into and out of the city being set up as we speak. Temporary cameras, and all hands on deck across every NYPD precinct. 24/7 patrol."

Tyler sees his mouth open and cuts him off: "And SWAT presence ten feet from every possible entry point to her building." He nods at Chuck. "Don't worry. We'll get him."

He puts down his glass. He really needs to stop. He can't get drunk right now.

Although sometimes, his inner voice wheedles, he's more clear-headed when he's several glasses deep.

He pushes it away and looks, again, at the photos.

"Is there anything I can do?"

He'll walk the streets himself, wave mugshots himself, review footage himself. Anything.

"There is."

He looks up.

"It would be better if no one told her. She's obviously immobilized right now, and I can only imagine what she must be going through…"

Trails off at a hard look.

"But given it won't help anything for her to know, and will probably just worsen her emotional state, or any other post-traumatic symptoms she might have, it would be best if she's shielded from knowing he's likely still here." Tyler looks at him meaningfully. "Her parents have been informed of the same."

 _Don't worry about anything._

"I understand." His hand reaches for the glass, instinctive, and draws back with effort.

iii.

She turns the hot water up, up, up, until it's scalding her, and gets out of the stream's path, forehead against the wall. The shower is the safest place in the penthouse.

It's the only place where she's alone and safe at the same time; she only started showering without Dorota monitoring her yesterday, peeking around the door to let her know she could go: _yes, Miss Blair._ Door shut softly behind her, brass skeleton key coming out without a word, turning and clicking the lock from the outside.

Blair watched the gilded deadbolt, disguised as an abstract iris that's not quite abstract enough to be a fleur-de-lis, turn ninety degrees, barring anyone from entering except Dorota. Not even her parents have skeleton keys- or, rather, not even they know where they're stored.

She locked herself in tonight, stepped behind the already-foggy door, and an hour later, rivulets of water cascading from her hair slowed to a trickle because she's been out of the shower head's path for so long, she's debating whether it's time to get out when the door handle jiggles.

She hears it at once, even over the pounding water, and jumps.

It stills.

Then jerks again.

The door rocks a little on its hinges, handle twisting to and fro in unison.

She presses herself into the back corner, tiles warm and wet against her goosebumps.

"Blair!"

She releases the breath she didn't know she was holding, tears springing to her eyes. "Mom?" Relief washes over her. "Mom…"

She wraps a towel around herself loosely and unlocks the deadbolt. Her mother cracks it open. "Darling, I'm sorry for barging in."

Blair's skittish heart must show on her face.

"Oh, my dear. I scared you. I'm sorry." Unexpectedly, she draws Blair in for a real hug- not to pet, not holding her silk blouse away from her daughter's wet hair. Hands firm yet ginger over Blair's back to avoid pressing on her ribs.

"Mom," Blair says again.

Blair never calls her "Mom."

"We got back from Westchester a while ago," Eleanor murmurs, fumbling on the rack just inside the door and finding a hand towel, using it to blot Blair's wet mane. "You were in the shower and… well, it's been a while. I got worried. I'm sorry."

The expected annoyance doesn't bloom inside her. "It's okay." She closes her eyes, cheek lolling on her mother's collar. Her mother holds her, towel stilling with Blair's handful in one terry fistful, and kisses her head and murmurs, _my baby._

Dorota laid out fresh petal-pink pants and a crew neck sweater for her. Inexplicably, given to her lengthy shower, there's a steaming cup of tea- lavender chamomile, from the smell of it- beside the small vase at her bedside, the only flowers left in the room.

"Any news from Westchester?" she asks, as her mother fusses in the vanity table drawer for longer than necessary so she can change into the pink outfit without being seen.

"Nothing definitive yet, but there are leads already," Eleanor says easily, in a way that sounds rehearsed. Smooth, bright. Like Blair's own prepared-remarks voice. She's heard her father prep her mother for dealing with legal matters enough times to know when she's affecting a tone.

Eleanor brandishes the brush and hesitates before handing it over.

"Do you want me to…?"

Blair flashes a half-smile that has about as much depth to it as Eleanor's status update on the manhunt. Dissembling is a Waldorf family pastime, after all.

"I'll do it."

Eleanor's smile rises and falls on an instant. "Well." She blinks several times, looking around Blair's room like she's trying to find an excuse to stay. "I'm going to have a bath and go to bed, but you know where to find me, darling."

"Goodnight."

"Oh…" Eleanor pauses on the threshold. She turns. "I forgot to tell you. Our television service went out. Your father called and they'll have it turned back on by morning."

"I'm going to bed anyway," she says, just as easily. Her mother never says _oh_ like that. She never says _I forgot to tell you._

But she smiles. "Goodnight, mom."

And Eleanor smiles back.

iv.

She's in bed, her father coming in to kiss her goodnight, wrapping her in his arms with a natural ease that's completely at odds with her mother's gestures, tea finished, tabloids and Page Six and photographs of the girl in Boston stacked neatly in her bedside drawer, brushing her still-wet hair and looking with bored derision at the pages of telephone messages Dorota hand-wrote and left on her vanity.

Waldorfs, Astors, Willoughbys, Vanderbilts, Lenoxes, Petersens- and that's just family and her parents' friends. Even more from classmates and distant acquaintances that didn't make it over today.

More praise for what a _good person_ she is, what a _lovely young lady,_ how _honored_ they are to know her.

In a gesture that would probably infuriate her mother, Dorota also clipped the resurrected "Night Out With" profile from today's edition of The Times and stuck it between the pages. Eleanor obviously forbade the newspaper from getting anywhere near her daughter.

The article might as well be called "Blair Waldorf Redux." _Call a spade a spade,_ she thinks, non-stitched corner of her mouth turning downward. Her father, rage quivering in the taut muscles of his neck, told her that since it's not actually illegal to name a minor who is a victim of violent crime- rape, murder even- in the media in New York state, there's a limit to how much they can do. And with an apologetic softness creeping in, that the tabloids were all over them already, so he wasn't sure how much good it would do to expend resources fighting it off.

She shrugged, then, saying it didn't matter. What else was she supposed to do?

 _It won't make any difference_ , she keeps telling herself detachedly, every time hot shame bubbles up inside her.

Hot shame that's frozen by cold fury at the way everyone keeps talking to her, like she's a child again. Or worse, a weakling.

 _Oh- I forgot to tell you._

The Times article that she strove so furiously to make perfect in December did come off without a hitch, lighting up her Christmas season despite other complicating factors. (Not feelings- _factors_.) The reboot is essentially a reprint of the facts from her profile- _Waldorf, who made her debut just last month-_ with sentences about her assault laced through- _A manhunt is underway for the suspect, reaching across the tristate area and as far north as New England in its quest for justice._ It's well-written and flattering. But she reads it again and again, sickness tingling in her stomach at the way it turns her into a sweeps-week-worthy sensation: the beaming cherub flying into a net, wings suddenly pinioned; Persephone skipping through the meadow, dark shape lurking behind her as she swings her basket the sacrificial lamb squealing on the altar.

The blushing virgin pillaged, senseless, tragic. The kind of story you cry just reading.

Except she doesn't cry reading it. She folds it and hides it inside the Enquirer, so Dorota doesn't get into trouble in case her mother opens her drawer, and finishes with her hair, eyes avoiding the mirror when she puts the brush back in its drawer.

v.

When he says hello, she says, "Did you settle things with Bart?"

She knows he didn't leave because of Bart, but he plays along. His stomach is growling and he realized a few minutes ago that he skipped dinner. It's 10:48 and the kitchen closes at 11.

"All settled," he replies.

"Good. I need a favor."

He grabs a banana and tosses it in the air with his free hand, catching it after it somersaults a few times. "Name it."

He thumbs open the room service menu that he knows by heart, cradling phone between ear and shoulder and snapping the banana open.

"I need you to be mean to me."

He pauses mid-peel. "What?"

"I'm so tired of everyone treating me like I'm made of glass. It's like no one I've seen in the past day knows me at all." She takes a breath, evening her voice out. "It's like everyone wants to apologize for what happened, like they all raped me."

He cringes.

"Like I died and they're all my eulogists. Just insult me or something. I need your venom."

He bites off the top of the banana. "Is that all I'm good for?" he jokes.

"No." She's silent for a little too long. "But it's something you do better than anyone else."

His shoulders slump a little, at that.

She lowers her voice. "Please. I _need_ you to say something nasty to me. I'm about to scream. You should see the phone messages people are leaving with Dorota for me."

"Blair…"

"It's disgusting." Even lower. She sounds strangled. "Come on, just one mean thing. Be a pal."

… _when you were beautiful._

He swallows. "I have nothing mean to say."

Scoff. "Sure you do."

 _Delicate, and untouched._

"Don't let me down here, Bass," she chides.

"Fine," he says, then takes another bite of banana.

She waits.

 _Rode hard and put away wet._

He chews and swallows and clears his throat.

"I thought your paper last spring, comparing methods of oppression in 1984, spent too much time on the show trials by the Inner Party. You should have focused more on the mind control of the masses."

She's silent for a few seconds, and then an unexpected spurt of laughter.

"It's much more satisfying," she bubbles, still laughing, "to spend time exiling powerful enemies than worrying about the cretins."

He smirks faintly, taking another bite and leaning forward, forearms resting on the counter. "But without their assignation, the regime would ultimately fail. Remember- 'if there's hope, it lies in the proles.'"

She snorts, mirthless and dry. "Orwell obviously never went to high school on the Upper East Side."

Sighing, with a feminine _hmm_ behind it: "That's all you have for me?"

He shrugs. "I also think you should have included some study of the parallel methods used in Animal Farm."

"Barnyard animals are the only things that interest me less than the proletariat," she dismisses. Pause. "Thank you."

"Any time."

She clears her throat. "So you're not going to tell me who that was on the phone before?"

"It was the apothecary, telling me the quick-acting poison was backordered for at least a few weeks." He takes the last bite of the banana and throws the peel away, foot flicking the pedal to release the trash bin from its cupboard. "Are you tired? How much longer will you be up?"

"I should be sleeping now, but no luck yet. Why? Do you need to go?"

 _I'm so tired of being treated like I'm made of glass._

"No." Although it's 10:53, and he needs to place an order soon if he wants to eat. "I think there's something you should do."

"What?"

"Are your parents home?"

"Yes. They're in bed."

 _It would be best if she's shielded from knowing he's likely still here._

She pauses. "Why?"

 _Her parents have been informed of the same._

"Chuck?"

He leans on the counter again.

 _I understand._

"I think you should turn on the eleven o'clock news on mute and put on the closed captions," he says finally.

"What?"

"I'm not sure if saying this is the right thing," he comments uselessly, more to himself than to her.

"Why? I can't anyway- our television service is out. My mom told me before…" she trails off. "Ah. I see."

His eyebrows flicker. "Cable box is probably unplugged," he agrees. "I'm sure you can find a live stream online." Pause. "And you should."

10:55.

She drops her voice; he can almost see her glancing at her door, suddenly furtive. "Can't you just tell me?"

 _What is that? Chuck- what is that?_

"I don't think I should."

What he means is: I can't say it out loud to you. Because then you won't be able to sleep, again, and it will be my fault. Again.

Not that this is really any better.

 _Bass. What is that on my leg?_

 _Scratches._

 _Does it say something?_

 _No._

She pauses. "Okay. I'll watch it."

 _You're a much better liar than this._

 _It says…_

"Thanks," she says. "For both."

 _Whore._

He gets his order in, grilled chicken salad with roasted vegetables and rice, at 10:58, and watches the press conference on his bed, cross-legged.

Uptown, she's doing the same, headphones plugged into the live stream, room darkened just in case, reflection from the screen tinging her pale skin blue.

vi.

He's chewing his first bite of chicken when his phone buzzes. He left it on his bed and, when it buzzes again after a moment's rest- ringing; a phone call- he gets up to get it.

Nate.

He sighs.

"Let me guess: you need me to send over some staples."

Nate pauses. "Hey." He clears his throat. "Did you see the press conference?"

"Yes."

"Sorry for… being weird earlier." And he does sound sorry; and vaguely confused, like he's not sure why he did it. Like it's someone else's behavior he's apologizing for.

"No problem," he says automatically.

Low: "Would it be okay if I stopped by?"

"Sure. Better hurry, though- paparazzi are going to be swarming as soon as they can get back from the headquarters."

"Be there in ten."

Which means he was on his way when he pressed Send.

vii.

He doesn't have time to wait and see if she'll call back, so he wolfs down the rest of his meal and dials.

"Wow," she answers. "I can't believe my parents tried to keep this from me."

"I'm sure they had good intentions."

"So he's… here." _Here._ The millions of people on the island of Manhattan seem to vanish, leaving only her and him.

"They think so."

Then there's a silence that stokes his heart into overdrive and makes him question his decision to tell her to watch at all.

"Are you okay?" he asks finally.

"Yeah, I…" she exhales sharply, like she's fighting tears. "I guess I'm a little weaker than I expected."

"You're not weak," he tells her.

"I thought he was gone. I'm surprised… I'm surprised how- how nervous I am, knowing he's here." Her voice falls across the sentence, ending at a whisper so small that he has to strain to hear.

"Waldorf. You're safe. Your parents are there, and Dorota, and your doorman, and it's a secure penthouse." He hesitates, and then: "The NYPD has SWAT teams set up on all entrances to your building."

She pauses. Her eyes are narrowed. He knows it. "How do you know all this?"

He knew that was coming.

"Was that what the phone call was about?"

"I'm trying to help," he says, voice tight, not inviting thanks or praise.

"Okay. But… don't lie to me about it," she replies, voice firm, not inviting impressions of weakness.

"I won't anymore."

Her voice sharpens. "And _don't_ do anything stupid like boss around a police officer."

"Deal," he smirks. _I won't even bother; I'll just circumvent,_ he adds silently. "But are you okay? Maybe you could ask Serena to come over."

"No," she says, too quickly. "I'll be fine."

He tips his head back, gazing at the ceiling. He hasn't seen or heard from Serena all day, and no photos of her have been posted since she left the Waldorf penthouse overnight.

"Okay."

She clears her throat. "Well, since you're apparently in the know," she hums, conspiratorial and melodic, "I trust you'll keep me informed?"

He glances at the lower shelf of his bedside table, where the photos of the guy leaving the dry cleaner's have joined the photos of the girl in Boston, and the photos of him walking down 77th, west from Mark Bar, Blair to his right. And the rags, and The Post, and The Times.

Quite a collection he's developing.

He tells her that of course he will.

viii.

He and Nate are drinking whisky sours- Nate's not in the mood for Scotch, and whoever stocked his kitchen this week left a mesh bag of particularly juicy lemons from Balducci's on the counter- in indifferent half-silence.

"Fucked up," Nate mutters at one point.

"Agreed." He tosses a lemon overhand in the air, like the banana before, other arm hyperextended and pressing his weight into the counter, forefinger and thumb gripping the base of his glass. Nate changed into a blue-and-white striped sweater from the jacket he wore to see Blair, looking like a man just in from sailing; he's in the same button-down, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow.

"My mom wanted me to call her." The blonde flicks hair out of his eyes, offhandedly. He really needs a trim. "I figured she was asleep."

He looks away, switching his lemon out for a bigger one, and throws this one underhand.

Nate blinks at him. "You talked to her."

He glances at the hard blue gaze and then away, exasperated. "Look." He swallows and shakes his head. "We can keep up the tension, but this is bigger. If you're pissed at me or can't be friends with me again, I get it, but…"

He puts the lemon on the counter and flicks his hand, other hand still clutching the whisky sour.

"Can we come back to it when this is over?"

Nate frowns in thought. "I'll try. I don't know whether I'm pissed- I do know we're friends." He sighs. "It's a lot right now. I'll try."

"Fair enough."

Nate drains his glass- too fast; Chuck hopes he ate dinner- and pushes it back across, getting to his feet.

"So she saw it, then?" Nate holds up a hand and Chuck tosses over the lemon, reaching for one from the bag to make him another drink.

"Yes. She knows he's here."

"How is she?"

His mouth tightens. He squeezes the lemon too hard too fast, and the juice spatters. He calms down; it needs to go in the glass.

"She's nervous."

Nate scoffs, tossing it in the air a few times. "Jesus. I bet. She must be out of her mind."

He glances up. "She's stronger than that." It may not be completely true- she's not at her best- but she definitely doesn't seem to feel like baring her soul to Nate right now. "More honey, or same as the last one?"

"More."

He splashes whisky on top, but doesn't fill it as full this time. All he needs is drunk, chatty Nate wanting to sleep over.

"How's your mom taking it?" He assumes Anne saw.

A great sigh. "Honestly, man, I'm worried about her. She's like… a nervous wreck. And she's not making any sense. She ordered that huge bouquet today-" Chuck, stirring the sour so he doesn't have to get out the shaker, keeps his face neutral; he _knew_ Nate didn't know her favorite flowers- "and insisted on me picking it up from the florist instead of having them meet me there, even though that's out of the way, so I had to take two cabs."

He looks up then.

Nate rolls his eyes.

 _So I had to take two cabs._

And, so he spent more time out.

More time exposed.

More time being photographed.

"So annoying," Nate sighs, and holds up the lemon in question. Catch?

He nods, and Nate throws it over. He catches it in one hand and finishes stirring, sliding the drink over. "Ridiculous," he agrees.

"Yeah, but," Nate shrugs, flexing his hand in request and then catching the lemon as it arcs back toward him- he's backed up toward the sitting area, "I think she's just out of it. I'm trying to be patient."

"Any chance she's hitting the pill bottle a bit?" he asks idly. Nate probably thinks otherwise, but Anne certainly looks like she's medicated- always has- and based on the few times Chuck has seen her since the Captain was arrested, he'd guess she needs to see about having her dosage adjusted.

"I don't think so." Nate watches the lemon rise and fall rapidly, rhythmic as he plays catch with himself.

"At least give yourself a challenge," Chuck scoffs, throwing him another. Nate can juggle, because of course he can.

Nate smirks. "Didn't know I was the entertainment tonight."

"Call it a trade." He nods at the second whisky.

"Gimme a third." He cradles two in one palm and catches the third, then sets about with three.

He loads his own drink with less honey and more whisky, abandoning his earlier notions of not pacing himself. It's not like he has school to go to in the morning.

"How many can you do?"

"Up to four at a time," Nate replies, eyes never leaving the three lemons bobbing in the air at staggered intervals.

He wants to reply, _it's like me and girls_ \- but it sticks in his mouth, more bitter than the whisky. Somehow it doesn't feel funny.

A fourth lemon comes at Nate, and he drops two of the first three. He chuckles good-naturedly and picks them up.

"Maybe my mom _should_ see about getting some kind of prescription," Nate muses, four lemons flying in perfect harmony now. It's remarkable not only that Nate is so athletically gifted, but how seamlessly he can multitask while doing anything physical. But try to have him remember words in a foreign language, focus on writing a paper or studying for a test, and suddenly he can't even handle one mental endeavor. "She's anxious as hell. Every time I look at her, she's biting her nails." He shakes his head as though disturbed by less-than-perfect female hands; what is this, the Midwest? "She says she just needs a manicure."

Chuck shrugs. "So get someone who does house calls." _Come on, Archibald._

"Good point." He nods his head sideways, lemons jumping smoothly as ever from his palms, toward Chuck's bed. "Phone's ringing." His mouth sets into a frown as he concentrates on picking up speed while Chuck edges past.

"It's past your bedtime," he answers, smarming, hoping for a spirited retort.

But Serena disappoints him. "Come downstairs," she whines. "Have a drink with me."

"You sound like you've had too many drinks already," he sighs, rubbing his eyes, suddenly tired. Nate rotates, juggling pace slowing.

"Who?" he hisses.

"Serena," Chuck mouths.

"I'm having another," she tells him, a little closer to spirited now: stubborn. "At _least_ one more. Whether you come or not."

"I'm having drinks already, as it happens. In Bar 1812. Population me and Nathaniel."

She scoffs, incredulous. "And you didn't invite me?"

"Because you should be in bed," he lectures again, instead of telling her the truth, which is that he didn't invite Nate either. He immediately wishes he hadn't told her; all he needs is two tipsy blondes in his suite right now.

"You saw the press conference?" she trips on, not slurring yet but slow. "It's being replayed over and over on whatever station they have down here."

He glances at Nate. "We both saw. She did, too."

There's a faint wince on her end.

"Chuck," she says, thickly- she has a way of saying his name like she's taking a bite out of something dense, an enunciation of the consonants that's unique from the way other people pronounce it. "Can I come?"

Nate's looking at him expectantly, four lemons in two hands.

"Sure," he says. "Come on up."


	12. Chapter 12

**Hello, beloved readers! Here's our next chapter. I'm hoping to publish another in a few days, so this one is cut a little shorter than I wanted for scene arrangement purposes, but hopefully still enjoyable =)**

i.

 _Wednesday, January 16_

 _Late evening_

Serena seems mildly irritated that he's not drinking Scotch. Like he's drinking warm milk or something, and not whisky. He stifles an eye roll.

"I'll make yours with Scotch if you want," he offers.

She shrugs. "I'll have what you guys are having."

He reaches for a lemon, but she picks up his glass, which is heavy on the whisky and light on everything else. He's not sure whether she's deliberately stealing his or thinks it's for her.

"So." She drops into the love seat, barefoot, bright blue oversized sweater dress slipping up her knee. "What's the plan?"

Nate, on a break from juggling, smacks his lips. "Plan?"

"What are we doing?"

The boys look at each other and then back at her.

"For Blair," she says, mouth staying open after the syllable, _Blair_ , dies on her lips, gaping at them like they're idiots. "The guy's still in town."

"We're not… _doing_ anything." Chuck goes back to squeezing a fresh half-lemon.

Her shoulders fall, head tilting in exasperation. "Come on. You're trying to tell me you're not scheming something up here? What, you two are just hanging out?"

She takes a long, bored drink from her glass, regarding them with goading skepticism. Like the very idea is absurd.

"We're _drinking_ ," Chuck corrects. He knows from experience that Insolent Serena requires a lot of emphasizing various words to get one's point across.

"That's reason enough," Nate agrees, putting his half-full glass down and picking up the four lemons again.

She glares hotly, and then gets to her feet and snatches one of Nate's lemons mid-arc. "Well, I'm not going to sit idly by and do nothing," she insists, almost at a yell.

 _Oh, great._

"There's nothing we _can_ do," Nate tells her. He's also very experienced with Serena's drunk insolence, although it's usually aimed at Blair when she wants Serena to stop drinking and call it a night.

"Speak for yourself. You're just being lazy." She passes the lemon back and forth between her two palms. Her eyes are hard and angry as they rove over Nate's face. And then, low, lethal, disgusted: "You don't even care about her."

Chuck's fist loosens, lemon bleeding into Serena's sour, as he looks up.

Nate catches all three remaining lemons in neat succession and stares at her, lips parted in affront. "At least," he bites after a long moment, " _I_ went to see her today and took her flowers."

 _That your mother chose,_ Chuck thinks tiredly.

Serena freezes, fingertips just holding onto the lemon. She steps back like Nate back-handed her.

He watches, carefully. There's some thread that loops across all of this, tugging the pieces together at the back of his mind. The look on her face in the photos. Blair's quick, flat refusal to ask her to sleep over.

Her eyes fall. "She didn't want to see me," she mumbles.

He glances sideways, and Nate is frozen too, eyes sliding to his own.

 _What_?

Nate steps forward. "Hey, I'm-"

She steps back again, jerkily.

He stops. "Serena. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."

"She didn't want to see me," she repeats, looking up at him, her lips parted now like she's waiting for him to explain why.

"I'm sure she didn't mean…" he reaches for the hand that isn't holding the lemon.

"Don't touch me." With a flick, she tosses the lemon back at him.

Behind the bar, Chuck notes how she tensed when Nate approached her, like she's afraid of him somehow. Or his talk of Blair. Because surely she's not afraid of Nate.

The blonde tries again, hands full of lemons now: "She really liked the macaroons you recommended to Dan as a gift."

Chuck sighs, but silences it.

Serena shrugs and turns toward Chuck- no, toward the bar- and picks up Nate's drink.

"I'll make you another," he offers, a glance at the coffee table confirming she's drained the one she stole from him already.

"I want Nate's," she replies, turning away.

With an exchanged glance at Serena's familiar antics, Nate passes Chuck his own empty glass, and he makes a new sour to replace the first one she stole, sliding it to Nate.

Serena's back on the love seat, knees pressed together below the modest- for Serena- hemline, staring hard out the window and sipping her drink too fast. Chuck pushes a banana into her hands.

"Not hungry."

"Come on, _sis_ ," he chides, betting she won't refuse in front of Nate.

She rolls her eyes and takes it. Nate sits down across from her with his full glass; and Chuck, who has been making sours for the last ten minutes, starts on a third one, hopefully for himself this time. He's going to have to cut into Nate's juggling stash if this keeps up.

"I didn't mean that before," Nate says softly to Serena when she finishes the banana, inclining his head, trying to get her to meet his eyes. There's a fervency in his pursuit that's unique to interactions with her.

"It's fine." She looks at him and then down into her drink, not bothering to apologize for her slight. Insolent Serena never apologizes until the next morning, if ever; they all know that.

The tinkling of Chuck mixing his drink is the only sound that cuts the silence that settles, which is neither uncomfortable nor comfortable. They've all sat in his suite drinking any number of times before, although it's been a while; Nate with an obvious-to-anyone-who's-looking visual interest in Serena; Serena oblivious-yet-engaging, warm-yet-vacant in a way that only she can be; him behind the bar, mixing and stirring and garnishing.

But Blair's usually here, too: stem of a glass of red perched delicately between her third and fourth fingers; wrinkling her nose at the "gasoline" the boys are drinking. (Like she's ever encountered gasoline.)

He's leaning against the counter opposite the bar, gazing idly across the suite, central seating area and the bedroom beyond, the city shimmering cold violet and a million pin-prick lights through the oversized windows to his left, when Serena swirls the ice in her near-empty glass.

"You really don't have a plan?"

She's looking at him.

"Nothing?"

He takes a sip, finally, of his fresh sour. Regards her.

"This isn't as simple as Nate distracting the teacher while someone dead-drops the English essay you paid them to write for you," he replies with a searching look. "It isn't a matter of 'let's run up and down the streets and buy every newspaper we can find.'"

Nor is it a matter of simple public humiliation.

No- that's been achieved already. In spectacular fashion.

"It's dangerous," Nate chimes in, staring into his glass.

"It's not even that." He shrugs. Danger is not the issue. He'd approach the guy – kill him with his bare hands, actually – if he saw him on the street. "It's that we don't have a target or any kind of intel. The police are involved. Until they narrow the search field," … or, until Tyler does, if he could just pick up the damn pace… "it's a waste of bandwidth. There's nothing to go on yet."

Serena sets down her glass, blinking slowly. She sniffs. Nate looks up at her sharply, like he's worried she might be crying- but she isn't. He can see from here.

"There's a little something to go on," Serena replies, steady, head turned toward him, face flat.

"And that is?" He has to apply a bored lag across his syllables, because he feels an inexplicable, uncomfortable twisting in his stomach at her sudden calm.

She's quiet for several seconds. Nate sets down his glass and shifts forward on the sofa, poised at the edge of the cushion, elbows on knees, and knits his fingers together.

"We know he likes girls who are vulnerable, and alone." She crosses her legs toward the bar now, toward him, and the fingers of one hand absently trail through the ends of her hair. Across from her, Nate's blue-and-white-striped shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep breath, hanging on every word, trying to puzzle out where she's going with this.

Chuck's ahead of him, as usual. He stares Serena down, folding his arms across his chest. He shakes his head back and forth, once, twice, with finality.

 _No, Serena._

Unmoved, she says quietly: "We could use me as bait."

Nate's hand shoots out at once. "Oh my God, absolutely not."

She glances down at where his hand hovers at her knee and then retracts. She doesn't look him in the eye.

She meets Chuck's gaze again. "I'd be alone. I'm vulnerable."

"No," he says, voice hard and low.

"We don't even know where he is – he's probably hiding out – or if he's in the city, or where he'd go…" Nate rambles, glancing back and forth between them.

"If he's in the city, he's obviously crazy enough to not understand repercussions," she points out, and when Nate begins to splutter indignantly, _then- (probably "then why on earth…")_ she cuts him off: "I've thought about it. Mark Bar isn't a big destination spot. It suggests he has specific taste. He told Blair he lived a few blocks from there. There are a few dozen spots like it that would be worth trying. It's not great odds," Serena agrees, still not looking at Nate's earnest face. "But it's better than nothing." She picks up her glass and takes a sip, as if the logic is sound and the answer is obvious.

"But he obviously- likes… brunettes," Nate struggles, anger getting the better of him. They've all seen the photos of the girl in Boston now – well, Nate and Serena and the viewing public have just seen her face, smiling in scarf and trench coat the spring of the year she was killed; not the carved pelvic crest and the swollen joints and purple arches of teeth marks and flopped wrists. Just the dark, soft velvet of her hair and her long eyelashes. Nate swallows in an effort to contain his fury at the thought of Serena in harm's way. "You're too…" _Special. Blonde. Overtly sexy-_ he imagines Nate trying to choose a word to adequately describe Serena- "You're not his type. Even if it wasn't crazy. It wouldn't help."

Serena exhales, angry, through both nostrils. "If we do _nothing_ , it definitely won't help."

"No," Chuck says again, not moving from his spot against the counter.

She turns, finally, to Nate. "Can you bear the thought of this guy being free? Getting away?" she appeals to his sympathetic, tipsy blue eyes. "What he did to Blair? What if he does it to someone else?"

His hand hovers again, and this time palms her knee. She twitches but doesn't flinch away. "Not you," he murmurs.

The two of them look like lovers whispering sweet nothings, Chuck thinks idly. If one didn't know the subject matter of their conversation, it would be easy to assume they were about to start kissing.

"You'd be right close by," Serena points out, her tone warming with comfort- a tactic that wouldn't work on Chuck, and she knows it. "I wouldn't really be _alone._ Just act like I was. But you'd be there the whole time."

And she sets down her drink and lays her fingers on top of Nate's hand on her knee, other hand toying with the ends of her hair again. Nate's eyes flicker down at the contact between their hands- _how long's it been since they touched?_ Chuck wonders- and then follow her other hand as it twirls the golden waves.

"You'd protect me," she says softly to Nate.

Nate the Hero.

"It's dangerous," Nate says again, but weaker. This time it sounds more like a plea.

"Not if you were watching out for me," she insists, just above a whisper, her knuckles tenting as she gives the hand on her bare knee a squeeze.

He watches this blatant manipulation of Nate with well-concealed admiration and, frankly, surprise. Serena has always provided the transparent yin to Blair's clever, subtle, complex yang. But then again, it should come as no shock that a lifetime at the side of a schemer on the level of Blair has taught Serena a few tricks along the way, not to mention how to spot those that are ripe for maneuvering.

"No," he says a third time, louder. "Out of the question."

"It would be safe," Serena says, but it's more to Nate, on whose face her determined expression is now fixed. "You'd be there for me. We could have a chance at stopping this guy."

This is the Serena he knew he saw last night at Divine. Serena who doesn't care enough to feed herself; Serena whose recklessness, whose carelessness, extends- at last- to herself. End-of-the-Cycle Serena; Trapped-Under-Rock-Bottom Serena; he's never hit quite on the right name for this phase, because he's only seen it a few times.

This Serena curls in a ball and shivers when it's not cold and she's not having a rough comedown from something. Her heart races when she's sitting still and hasn't touched cocaine in days. She picks at the skin around her fingernails until she has hangnails, and then peels them backward until they bleed.

And she lies. And she uses people.

And she knows how to turn it on, but the signs are there – not transparent but translucent; one just has to know where to look. And he knows this, and Blair knows this, and even Nate should damn well know this.

But he can see the slow shift of Nate's throat as he swallows.

He rolls his eyes heavenward for a moment. "Enough. We're not having this conversation."

"What if one of us was right next to her," Nate turns toward him, hand still firmly on Serena's knee, "and the other was by the door?"

Barely perceptible, Serena nods, eyes still locked on Nate's face. Her gaze is cool.

 _Oh_ , _Jesus_.

His eyes tick between the two of them. "What would Humphrey say about this?" His tone drips condescension and entendre. They all know what Humphrey would say, and no amount of hand squeezing would change his mind.

It works. Nate withdraws his hand. Serena shoots Chuck a withering look.

"He's right," the blonde mumbles, picking up his glass. "It's not safe, Serena."

As Nate looks away, Chuck lifts his glass, other arm still crossed across his chest, slightly, in toast toward her. Her face has gone flat again, and she drains her- Nate's- drink. Gets up to approach the bar, still glaring at him, and pours herself straight whisky.

"Easy, Van der Woodsen," he says low behind her.

She turns around, fury in her eyes, surprisingly sharp despite how drunk she is. "Fuck you," she seethes under her breath.

"Let's get rid of Nate first," he levels back, his tone just as poisonous- and instantly regrets it. He doesn't know how to deal with this Serena. She's exhausting and he has no patience for it. They need Blair- which, really, is the problem at the root of all this: they don't quite work without her.

She doesn't bother concealing her sneer. "You're so disgusting."

The irony of her inebriated anger at _him_ while she's sipping _his_ whisky out of _his_ glass in _his_ suite – because _he_ won't let her attempt to throw herself in the way of a _rapist_ – roils in his stomach.

She clenches her jaws, mouth tight, and lowers her eyes to her drink, a technique he knows well:

Look down when you deliver the nastiest thing you're about to say. You don't need to see the other person's expression to know what it is.

Just say it like it's nothing to you.

"I'd think you'd want to help, when this is all your fault."

Leaning back against the counter, half-full sour in one hand, arms crossed lazily, he's the picture of nonchalance. The light in the kitchen is dim enough that he's sure she can't see the way the color drains from his face.

He waits.

"If you hadn't sent that tip," she continues, eyes blurring now, "then none of this would have _ever_ happened…"

Nate has been watching their exchange, probably sees Serena wiping at her cheekbones, the motion of her hand coming up in front of her face obvious even as she keeps her back to him. But he can't hear the undertoned barbs they're exchanging. "Are you guys fighting?" he pipes up suddenly.

Serena turns. He's suddenly aware that hot splotches are burning high on his cheekbones. Not embarrassment or guilt because he sent in the tip, either. The way Serena looked down before she said the nastiest thing she could say to him…

 _Looking down at his Scotch, feeling wide, wet eyes on him. Heart thudding, fingers clenched around the glass, knuckles white- the knuckles facing away from her. So she can't see how he has to anchor himself to something, the way she digs her nails into her palm when emotion threatens to surface at an inconvenient time._

 _A deceptively light breath through his nose._

" _Rode hard and put away wet."_

"No," Serena tells Nate. "Just getting another drink. Want one?"

ii.

A staple of Manhattan pre-war architecture, the Classic Six apartment is a time-honored tradition. Consisting of a formal dining room, full living room, complete kitchen, master and second bedrooms, small maid's quarters off the kitchen, and two bathrooms, the Six is how one announces to the world that one has arrived.

Many original Sixes have, over the years, been renovated to keep up with the times. They've been gutted and turned into modern, airy open-floor-plan studios, finished top-to-bottom in three coats of matte Farrow & Ball in French Cream, with gallery walls of well-lit original Manets and Picassos. The maid's quarters have been turned into storage, or walls knocked down to shift the kitchen further down to make room for an appropriately-located guest bedroom. One does not hide one's guests away behind the kitchen, after all.

For the larger and better-endowed family of wealthy Manhattanites, there is of course the Classic Seven, with one additional full-sized bedroom; and for those planning on an especially large brood of children in Italian wool peacoats and private school blazers, the Classic Eight.

However, when one is a Waldorf, one has a fully appointed penthouse. It is two levels, with original hardwood floors and handmade carpet in its four bedrooms, and Grecian tile in its three and a half baths, two of which have full soaking tubs in addition to their showers. Its ceilings are high, tall windows and sweeping curtains – velvet in winter, chiffon in summer – and wood-burning fireplaces in four of the rooms. There's a full kitchen, off of which its maid's quarters are intact and fully utilized. There is also a grand dining room, formal parlor and an additional sitting room, for when one's list of fascinating and well-pedigreed friends cannot be contained to just two full-sized rooms. It has a small study, tucked away at the end of the second-floor hallway past the four upstairs bedrooms, with built-in bookshelves that date back as far as it's been in the family.

It is the ideal place for an Upper East Side princess to grow up into a beautiful, flawless and accomplished queen.

Its _piece de resistance_ , from an architectural perspective, is its original structural staircase, fit for guests of honor to make their grand entrances at lavish parties – after readying themselves in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, naturally. Fit for sweeping down in ballgowns, flowing silk day dresses, tasteful sheaths and stilettos and oversized sunglasses.

Fit for a girl, perhaps a princess- though it's hard to tell as she pads quickly, barefoot, down the staircase, apprehensive in the dark, slotting her feet deliberately against spots of light that come in through the parlor windows as though keeping her feet illuminated will stop a hand from reaching out to grab at her ankle and force her to her knees- bunching her hand around- not a taffeta gown, nor a lace calling dress, but a loose turtleneck sweater- to descend in the middle of the night.

Not with an air of superiority, or sophistication, or even the grace she normally carries- if this is, in fact, the same girl, slipping as she does down the stairs, leaning on the bannister for support with every step.

Trembling chin, stomach full of acid. She feels a hand reaching out after her, just missing her shoulder or her hair every time; she's narrowly evading capture, her heart tells her, and she needs to hurry.

And her fingers are furious as they squeeze and twist at her knitted cotton, because princesses aren't supposed to be afraid of the dark. But more important than that is her need to get away, just in case the heel of a wingtip is about to crack down on her foot, or kick her at the knee and suddenly she'll be flat on her chest again- and she doesn't have her phone this time- and she can hear him hissing, and it sounds like he's just behind her- _whore- WHORE-_

She breaks into a run, gasping at the sting of her rib- she's not even supposed to be walking- and throws herself at the first door on the left in the corridor past the kitchen- hears an exclamation, too quick to be half-conscious, and pushes it open.

Dorota takes one look at her, reading lamp next to her bed casting golden light on the book that's asleep beside her, and beckons her in without a word.

Blair shuts the door behind her, jaw quivering and tears spilling over, and turns to lock it behind her.

She spins, and even as the pink cotton at her chest darkens with overflowing tears, she blinks at Dorota. "I came because," she manages, voice impressively royal, "I don't want smoked salmon with my eggs tomorrow. I want a crab omelet."

Dorota nods dutifully, hair loose above her nightgown, also pink.

"Yes, Miss Blair."

Blair stands, still, stepping away from the door like it's going to wrench open behind her and she'll be dragged out, flipped onto her back, and-

She clasps her face in both hands, splinted one uselessly covering her good one, and shivers where she stands.

"Dorota…" she manages at a whimper, like a little girl.

"Come." The book is on the bedside table now, Dorota pulling back the corner of the comforter for her, and she doesn't have to look up to ease herself under the covers.

Ever since this princess was particularly small, this room has been where she comes when she needs to hide. She'd bring a stuffed animal, or a small, tattered blanket; and then nothing, for years, when she was too proud to cry. And then once, just once, when the king abandoned her, and the queen swept off to Paris and left her behind, the sixteen-year-old princess reappeared and buried her head in Dorota's shoulder.

And always, always: "Come."

And always…

"Leave it on," Blair murmurs from behind her hands, although Dorota doesn't reach for the reading light.

Small feet and slim ankles furling beneath her, because she cries best when she's curled up.

And always…

"Kochanie, moje kochanie," Dorota murmurs, stroking her hair back from her forehead and temples, lifting and twisting it in the way she used to do to soothe her when she was just a little princess.

 _Sweetheart, my sweetheart._

Just the same as always; but then again, it's never been quite like this.

iii.

He manages to get rid of Serena around three; it's a close call. She keeps trying to fall asleep on the love seat, and Nate throws him accusatory looks when he nudges her awake. Like it's not his suite, and she has every right to sprawl wherever she feels like and make herself at home, and she doesn't have a room of her own in her own family's suite literally three floors up.

Ordinarily she'd leave on her own, but she doesn't; and there's a cold fist squeezing his stomach since her suggestion of using herself as _bait_ , and he wants confirmation that she's safely behind the door of her suite, where her mother and brother are at least there to keep track of her. MIA Serena is one of the only things that could make their current situation palpably worse.

And so it is that he walks her up, and not Nate, because Nate pointedly ignores the opportunities that present themselves to escort her. Indeed, Nate is suddenly completely preoccupied, with his drink or the view of Midtown at night that he's seen a thousand times from these very windows, at any suggestion of her not sleeping on the love seat three feet from him. _Subtle_ , Chuck thinks drolly.

"Do you think they'll catch him?" she asks quietly in the few moments they spend in the elevator. Her tongue is thick in her mouth; she's had another two whiskies at least- she and Nate were playing musical glasses for a while, so he lost track- and refused another banana. He wants her to pass out and wake up, hungover but safe, in any suite but his.

"Of course," he says with a coolness that implies they're in the midst of a manhunt for someone in Union Square Park and not the whole of New York City, with a densely packed population of millions that swells up to nearly double with the influx of commuters every day. With its dozens of neighborhoods, hundreds of ways out, and thousands upon thousands of places to hide.

The Van der Woodsens' suite is as far from the elevator bank as possible; Lily doesn't like to hear the noise of the dinging and conversation that come with being near a "transportation thoroughfare."

As they draw near her door, she asks, with effort: "Do you think she'll want to see me when they do?"

He wouldn't have brought it up, but he stops and turns toward her.

"What happened?"

"We were sleeping last night, and I woke up and she was- having a nightmare. A flashback. And I woke her up…" Serena blinks slowly, the same look of misery that was pasted on her face in this morning's tabloid spread settling back in. "And she was staring at me and then she said…"

 _I think I should be alone right now._

"And she was just… so still, and she was crying but she wouldn't tell me why." She swallows and looks him in the eye. "And then she didn't want me to come over today when everyone else was visiting. Although I guess she didn't necessarily invite any of those people."

 _Are you coming?_

 _On my way. In traffic._

She shrugs. "And maybe she was just tired of having people imposing."

He nods. "I'm sure that's it."

"I tried to apologize to her for what I said that night…" Serena sniffs, miserable, and tucks her hair behind one ear, shifting her feet. "She said it was forgotten."

 _I know you didn't mean it. It doesn't matter._

"But I… I told her she was on her own. And then last night, when she was having a nightmare, she said she thought she should be alone."

 _Please. Please, don't-_

She's looking at him expectantly, like she just asked him his middle name and the answer should be straightforward.

"I'm sure she's just having a really hard time," he tries.

 _Maybe you could ask Serena to come over._

 _No. I'll be fine._

"They just need to catch him," Serena says, rambling: "They just have to- catch him, or- we have to, and then she'll- she can start to heal and she'll stop…"

 _Pushing me away._

Just like he lied to Blair in the hospital when he knew what she wanted to hear: "They will. And she will."

"Don't scheme without me," she warns with a smack on his shoulder before disappearing inside her suite.

Back in 1812, Nate is on his back on the sofa, clearly ready to stay over, head tilted slightly sideways to look at the empty love seat across from him. He's throwing one lemon in the air listlessly, straight up and down above his face. He's as drunk as Chuck's seen him in a while, at least while Chuck is sober; he was drunk for most of the eleven days he spent in Monaco, and especially when Nate was with him, bursting with talk about how his night with Blair was thirsty business and, from the look of her afterward and the way she collapsed on his chest, she'd obviously never even imagined it could be like that- _you have no idea, man_ \- while he chain-smoked under opaque sunglasses and channeled the blackness in his gut into tumbling every woman that looked his way. _You're in rare form_ , Nate had chuckled to him one morning, almost a twinge of concern in his otherwise impassive smile, but then a more pleasant thought had distracted him: _I oughta thank you, you know- all these years watching you pick up girls; I think some of your swagger must have rubbed off on me, the way Blair was wrapping her legs around me and saying my name._

"Need a blanket?" he asks as he yanks his shirt off over his head with uncharacteristic irreverence, retrieving his pajamas from a hook on the inside of his closet door.

He's hoping Nate will say, _nah, I'm going to head out._

Of course, he doesn't.

Instead, the lemon stills and the last thing Chuck expects to come out of the blonde's mouth does.

"Did you care about her?"

He looks over his shoulder, and Nate's head is inclined, one arm folding upward to cradle behind it like he's settling in to discuss this.

 _The incredulity on his face. Mocking._

" _Oh, so you_ cared _about her?"_

He blinks at Nate, still looking over his shoulder, not bothering to turn. "We've all been friends a long time." Hopefully that's enough.

But Nate waits.

 _Blinking softly in her dark room, horizontal, face to face, hearts inches from one another. One of the few nights that they spend fully together._

 _Fingertips on his cheekbone, top border of his eyebrows, tracing the slope of his nose, his cupid's bow, the hard lines of his jaw. No one's ever touched him like this. Not that no one's tried, though few have; but he certainly hasn't let any of them get away with it._

 _At a whisper: "The tops of your ears are flat."_

 _In the same whisper: "The tops of yours are round." Because his fingers are mirroring the path of hers, tracing her face, his fingertips creating memories as he hadn't even known fingertips could until recently._

 _She laughs, low in the dark. She's tired. They both are._

 _She surprises him by kissing him sweetly on the lips. No desire at all. "Goodnight."_

 _He surprises himself by placing the same kiss on her forehead, hearing what might be a sigh or the first deep exhalation of sleep, both slipping from consciousness._

He finally turns halfway, licking his lips slowly.

"Sex complicates things." His teeth hold his lower lip for a moment. "You know?"

Nate lays the lemon on the coffee table behind him, and his eyes flick over the empty love seat. "Yeah." He clears his throat, reaching for a pillow. "I'll take that blanket if the offer's still good."

"For you, a thousand blankets," he replies, tossing it over still folded. When he's safe in the dark under his own covers, he tests it, and yes- the memory of her rounded ears, the delicate spine of her nose, is still alive in his fingertips.

iv.

 _Thursday, January 17_

 _Early morning_

He's still rubbing his eyes a few hours later when, after jolting upright at the angry whir of a vibrating cell phone on his nightstand, he's unsealing the large manila envelope, splitting the cursive "Kathryn" that spans its back seam.

Nate's cheeks and nose are flushed with sleep; he's pushing his hair back from his face with both hands in a completely childish manner, feet planted unsteadily on the floor, down blanket crumpled around him like a scrunched-up cloud.

He rests one elbow on his knee, cradling his head in his hand, eyes shifting closed. "What is it?"

Chuck ignores him, turning pages. He half-snorts. Those peonies look even more ridiculous in photographs.

ARCHIBALD LOYALLY AT WALDORF'S SIDE!

Nate smacks his lips and swallows loudly, unaware of his own odd mouth noises in his half-consciousness.

"Is it the guy?"

And it's not just the peonies; it's Nate glaring from the porch of his penthouse, looking over his shoulder accusingly outside the school gates, holding up a hand as he hitches up his duffel bag of whatever gear varsity athletes carry around after school.

WALDORF'S BOYFRIEND IS HER ROCK!

"No."

There are photos from as far back as their junior high winter formal, when Blair and Nate were co-chairs of the committee to plan the dance (joint pressure from Blair and Anne having forced him to volunteer).

VANDERBILT-ASTOR HEIRS: AMERICAN FAIRY TALE, INTERRUPTED!

"Is it her?"

And the two of them at his own father's Labor Day party last September, Blair flawless in a white hat with fuchsia bow, white-and-beige striped dress and perfectly matched fuchsia wedges, Nate awkwardly dark next to her in a dark red button-down. _"Not a summer color,"_ she'd whispered at Chuck accusingly when the boys showed up. _"I'm not his mother, Waldorf, I didn't lay his clothes out for him"_ he'd replied with a smirk. He himself had been dressed in white-and-green seersucker with a dark pink cravat and pocket square that Nate had glanced at, then his own shirt, then back at the cravat, then shrugged as they left 1812.

NATE ARCHIBALD: WALDORF'S WHITE KNIGHT!

Nate straightens as he walks past him on his way back to bed, and he drops The Enquirer right onto his waiting lap.

"It's you, actually."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I really apologize for the delay. I'd been feeling under the weather the last few weeks, and it turns out I had strep throat! Recovering now =)**

 **Thank you all so, so, so much for your patience, and your kind reviews!**

i.

 _Thursday, January 17_

 _Morning_

There's a muffled scream in Manhattan's throat, like an unwilling viewer of a horror movie burying her face in a pillow. Not for the faint of heart.

And a terrible, teasing irony that struggles to the surface: that rapists, murderers, most certainly walk these streets every day. They might be the blue jeans and backpack ahead of you at the turnstile in Columbus Circle; the overcoat sliding from the cab pulled up diagonally to the curb, yielding its service to you; the horn-rimmed glasses and conductor's cap that glances at you over the top of its book in Bryant Park.

And New Yorkers know this.

But when the NYPD calls a press conference to point out that a specific one is in your midst, it throws a different color on things. Suddenly every pair of blue jeans, every overcoat, every conductor's cap feels like a threat. If the city is a bow, its loops have been shortened, tails clipped, center knot tied savagely tight.

Constance-St. Jude's is still closed, and now other private schools follow suit, with hasty notifications sent via email and followed up by private phone calls to sprawling Classics on both sides of the Park, and trendy SoHo lofts and high rises with views of Lady Liberty in FiDi: " _In accordance with the NYPD directive to exercise extreme caution in the safety of our children…"_

The Museum of Natural History, the New York Public Library and the Central Park Zoo hold a pre-dawn conference call to organize a series of activities for children of all ages, to be conducted in safe, secure environments, with press releases going out and fliers still warm from the press delivered in sheaths to the family-laden neighborhoods of the Upper East and Upper West.

 _Join us today, Thursday, January 17 and tomorrow, Friday, January 18, for private tours-_

" _Parents are urged to consider this situation a hazard, and the suspect extremely dangerous-"_

Husbands and wives exchange tense words about whether to let their teenaged children go out alone. Nannies are instructed that toddlers must be held by the hand at _all_ times outside the confines of the apartment. Doormen politely ask visitors to please sit and wait while they phone up to confirm that their host is indeed expecting a guest.

Phones are poised in gloved hands as wool coats pause on street corners, casting quick glances over the faces of passersby that are doing the same in return. Weary eyes on unusually quiet subway cars flood with an odd stab of relief when the blind man gets on at his usual stop in TriBeCa and begins swinging his cane, singing showtunes.

Mobile signal towers and landlines buzz and flicker with the hundreds, thousands of tips that pour into the NYPD headquarters, sifted through with ruthless swiftness: hurried descriptions accompanied by email attachments of blurry photos; a half-face above a trench coat here, a fork poised at the mouth there- could this be him? Possible sighting?

And flash bulbs and elevated microphones are poised, surrounding the Waldorfs', the Archibald townhouse, the Palace, waiting to strike.

ii.

The two blondes step off the elevator and forget to stay close to the wall, to hide in the lee of the pillar. They freeze, guiltily, in the near-instantaneous explosion of flash bulbs and muted shouts of their names from beyond the wall of glass at the other end of the lobby, zoom lenses training on them with an almost magnetic swiftness.

Nate catches Serena's arm, too slow- she's already backing toward the wall.

"Jesus," Nate mutters.

"My fault," Serena replies. "I should've known they'd be here."

 _Hesitating at the elevator bank on the 18_ _th_ _floor, finger hovering, hovering, above the Down arrow._

 _And finally pressing Up. Tucking in his undershirt, smoothing his hair on the three-floor ride._

They edge up the wall past the elevators and head for Dais, which is open from early breakfast through late lunch, vibrant green walls and gold cutlery mimicking a classic English sitting room. Serena waves hello to a server whose name she doesn't remember and they settle in a corner booth where no one could get a clear shot at them through any window.

"This is ridiculous." Serena runs her fingers through her hair, gathering it into a careless ponytail over her long-sleeved plain dress- an odd non-shade of mauve-gray-lilac- and reaching for the ice water that's deposited in front of her. "I feel like a goldfish."

Nate drops the sheaf of photos of himself- tabloids, technically, but they're mostly photos and splashy headlines without much further text to go on- on the table. "Tell me about it."

 _Hesitating again at her door, thinking for a moment that he should just leave._

"So- did you have something specific you wanted to talk about?"

Nate's cheeks are still somewhat flushed from the flustered sleep he fell back into after Chuck dropped the headlines in front of his eyes.

"Not really."

 _Erik's flat, unsurprised smile when he answers the knock._

His blue eyes blink twice. "Just…"

 _Miss you._

"Wanted to see how you're holding up."

She gives him a sad, lopsided smile after she orders two scrambled eggs with half an avocado, and tells him she's been better.

" _Sorry, if she's busy or asleep I can- "_

" _I'll get her. Hang on."_

"Which one of us do you think deserves her less?" Serena asks offhandedly after a few moments of what he thinks- apparently mistakenly- is comfortable silence, trickling cream into her coffee from a tiny gold jug.

"Don't do this to yourself."

She nods, like he actually offered a response and she's agreeing with it. "I think me, too." She stirs with a gold coffee spoon, which is a pointless Serenaism because she's about to add sugar and she'll have to stir that too.

 _You could just stir them in at the same time,_ Chuck has pointed out to her on any number of occasions while they're eating breakfast, often when she's pounding cup after cup of coffee to drown her hangover, at various degrees of burnt to a crisp himself, tie perfectly in place or still in last night's rumpled shirt.

 _I like my way,_ she's always replied, eyes barely open or bright and flawlessly shadowed.

Nate watches the usual Serena ritual that he could imitate if he wanted: she tidies the spoon with her mouth and lays it carefully on a napkin, then reaches for the tiny gold sugar bowl.

"Well," he says just as quietly, "I told her I loved her and lost my virginity to you an hour later, and then left and called her from the cab- shirtless- and told her I'd twisted my ankle and had to go home." He pauses. "And then said I loved her. Again."

"I banged you in a public place and then ignored her for almost a year." She shrugs, swirling the sugar.

"I wrapped my ankle- which was definitely not twisted- and propped it up under an ice pack so I could keep up the lie when she came around the next morning with my favorite scone and coffee for me."

He sips his cup, black, and waits.

"I ignored the fact that her parents were getting divorced and never reached out to see if she was okay, and then finally came back and got her to forgive me, but never told her we slept together." Two mini-spoonfuls of sugar; she pauses, gold sugar scoop hovering above its bowl, and raises an eyebrow at him. "What else you got?"

"I _did_ tell her we slept together. When she was half-naked and ready to lose her virginity to me." He props one blue-and-white-striped elbow on the table, cradling the side of his head in his palm.

She's stirring slowly, mechanically, though her coffee is clearly fully blended.

Around and around.

"After all that, and everything that happened that split you two up, and then everything with Chuck, I failed her again. I told her she was on her own."

"It was my fault she was on- "

Her scoff bites his sentence off where it is. "No. I talked to her after that. I told her she was on her own." She glances up through her eyelashes. "We're best friends. I'm supposed to be there. Guys come and go. I'm supposed to be with her forever. She's stuck by me through _everything_ and what did I do?"

Nate holds her gaze.

"What I always do. Blew off our friendship at the first test of loyalty. I'm the reason she was by herself to begin with." She cleans her coffee spoon again, smile sparkling up at the server when their eggs arrive, and settles back into her seat, posture loose and careless.

Quietly: "It was all of us." She rolls her eyes, and he reaches for her hand suddenly, grabbing it where it sits next to her spoon. She doesn't pull away. "We all left her alone. Because this terrible thing happened, it seems like she paid more for her mistakes than we have. But they're not- connected. And this isn't your fault." He tightens his hand when Serena's blank expression doesn't change. "Okay? It's _not_ your fault."

"In the end, though, it all comes back to me," she says blankly when he's finished with his classic Nate-Archibald-everyman's-champion pep talk. "If I wasn't me…"

Nate clamps down on her fingers when she tries to withdraw her hand. "If you weren't you, I don't know where any of us would be. You light up the world," he tells her seriously.

The corners of her mouth curve up, but her smile is absolutely the saddest thing he's ever seen. Sadder than Blair tucked in bed with broken ribs and a torn face; sadder than his mother, delicate and refined in perfume and pearls and cashmere, crying against his chest, small frame heaving with the force of her sobs.

"I light up the world," Serena repeats, quiet, still sitting back in her seat and looking over his earnest face he keeps his grip warm and firm around her knuckles, just like last night, when she almost, almost had him. When she almost got him to see that her best (only use- only value, really) use was as bait.

Almost. But not quite.

She sighs. "Let's eat?"

She's finished in under five minutes, gestures the server to put it on her room bill, and tells him she has to go. He watches her leave, head tilting to follow her path out the door as far as he can.

She hasn't touched her perfectly mixed coffee. He picks it up, switching it out for his empty cup. It's smooth and sweet and effortlessly perfect.

He wonders if she knows what he meant. That if she wasn't her, he's not sure who he'd be.

iii.

 _Afternoon_

"But this is one of how many?"

"Thousands, by this point."

"And didn't we think we had something similar last weekend? And then it turned out to be false?"

"Yes, but this was a proactive tip, corroborated by more than one person."

Chuck's fingertips drill the countertop.

"And why aren't they going after him, if it's the first promising lead they've had so far?"

There's yelling in the background on Tyler's end. "Hang on." A fuzzy noise as he blocks the receiver with his thumb, raises his voice at whoever it is to keep it down. "Sorry. We're seeing whether there are other witnesses, ideally on the train the guy got on. An undercover police officer from the local unit will get on at the stop after the next, which is in about an hour and a half."

"Can't they stop the train?" he demands incredulously.

Tyler stifles a sigh; he can hear it through the phone. "We can't bring the New York State infrastructure to its knees or spare a team to go chasing after every potential sighting, even every strong potential lead."

His tone says: _be reasonable._

Fingertips drum faster. He's not interested in reasonable.

"What station is that?" He looks at his watch. Could he and Arthur-?

"Sit tight, kid."

Chuck squeezes his eyes shut and tries and fails to unclench his teeth. "You're striking me less like a PI and more like a personal assistant." And one who needed to be fired, at that.

"Oh?" Tyler fires back, sharp and low. "I'm technically violating my code of ethics through being involved in the official search and leaking information to a member of the general public. I could lose my clearance for this phone call."

"Interesting."

They're both silent.

Irritated with his own finger tapping, Chuck snaps his hand open and splays his fingers on the bar.

"Maybe keep that in mind when debating how quickly to pass me further updates," he mutters into the phone.

There's a half-snort on the other end, mixed in with the white noise of a police headquarters abuzz with the scent of blood. "You and your two blonde sidekicks gonna go attack him?"

Chuck's nostrils flare.

"Leave them out of this."

"I need to leave you _all_ out of this." He stops to respond to a flurry of vocals on the other side- _yes, yes- they're on the way- that's okay-_ and then lowers his voice. "I'm happy to continue with our arrangement, but I can't do anything that endangers any of you, and that includes helping you put yourself in danger."

"Does hiring a hit man count as endangering myself?"

"Kid," Tyler murmurs, close like he's cupping his hand around the mouthpiece, "I get where you're coming from. I've seen people I care about hurt and wanted to hurt in return. Why do you think I got into this line of work?"

Chuck blinks down at his hand, which, he realizes, is tracing lines on the counter. Bridge of nose, delicate crest of upper lip.

Curved rim of ear.

"You getting yourself mixed up in this is no use to anyone. You helped jumpstart this whole thing, but it's rolling now."

He releases his hand and Chuck can hear background noise again.

Smooth slope of jawline.

"We're going to get him. Trust me."

Chuck touches his own eyelashes, a fan not as thick as hers. She told him once that she liked them. _Thanks,_ he said.

"I trust you'll keep me informed."

"I will. Stay put."

 _People I care about._

iv.

The detective visits her in her own room this time, because she's actually observing the fact that she's supposed to be on bed rest.

She's reading, with detached amusement, the spreads on Nate. She can see the tabloids' point. They make a good-looking couple, obviously, and they do paint quite a picture, given the circumstances.

"No arrests yet?" She's quiet, good hand carefully clasping splinted.

"No- but several leads," he offers. He doesn't shift his feet or look around; doesn't do anything to violate the private bedroom he's invaded to talk about how he has yet to catch her rapist.

She licks her lips, which are perpetually chapped now, no matter how much she balms them, no matter how much water she drinks. "Anything promising?" she asks hopefully.

Downstairs, through the door the detective left open, she can hear the hum of her father's voice, the spike of her mother as she interjects- _Harold –_ Har _old… !_

"We have a few that seem particularly interesting. They may well be reports of the same- person- from different points over the past few days- "

 _Stop it._ Her father's hiss is sharp and desperate-sounding. _Just stop it. I'm doing the_ best _I can-_

 _The best? The_ best?! _How can you possibly say that, when they're practically papering her baby pictures all over the subway, for Christ sake-_

 _Eleanor-_

 _As though you've not been absentee enough-_

 _There's no law-_

 _When she actually_ needs _you-_

"You can shut the door," Blair suggests.

 _For God's- are you ever going to forgive me? Are you ever-_

 _Forgive you? For_ give _you?!_

The door closes with a soft click. The detective turns slowly, face blank.

"Will you still need me to identify him?" Blair asks needlessly, just to fill the awkward pause.

"Yes. Just given the- the lack of viable DNA samples."

She nods. "Can we do it at night or sometime when I won't be photographed?"

The detective blinks. He's not thought that far ahead. "We'll sort out a way to handle it without you being seen," he promises.

 _I know they think he's still in town and they've relocated the search,_ she told her mother that morning. _If the detective stops by, I want to speak to him alone._

Her mother's cheeks had flamed instantly, shame and surprise blooming under the hastily applied concealer that doesn't quite disguise how poorly rested she is.

And then, finger marking the spot in the mostly-photos-anyway tabloid spread she was reading about this fantastically contrived view of her personal life, it tumbled out: _I'm not with Nate anymore. I haven't been for a while. Just so you know. We're…_ a small shrug. _Friends, though._

 _Friends?_ Eleanor repeated, like she was tasting vinegar when she meant to take a sip of wine.

 _On a good day._ And fanned open the pages, verso showcasing their beaming smiles- if uncoordinated outfits- at the Bass Labor Day party.

"Do you think he'll be… alive? When he's arrested?"

She shivers a little. If he's dead, she won't have to identify him in person. Surely she wouldn't have to identify his corpse.

He hesitates. "It's difficult to say how these things will go," he apologizes. "I'm afraid I can't make assumptions."

"Maybe dramatic shoot-outs in the movies aren't the best way to imagine it playing out." She tries at a smile.

"We wouldn't open fire unless a suspect opened fire on us." He pauses again. "And even then, we would aim to wound, not…"

"Kill." She holds his gaze for a long moment, then looks away. "I understand."

Though it seemed a little unfair, since he had aimed to kill, not wound.

"We'll keep you informed if anything changes, by phone if not in person," he promises as he takes a step backward, a respectful nod.

There's silence, somehow deafening and acidic, from the foyer below.

"Please ask to speak to me if you come in person," she says, gaze sliding through the open door.

v.

Lily is pacing, gorgeous fuchsia robe gathered around her long white nightgown, ruffled neckline peeking through with the kind of carelessly coincidental perfection that can only be achieved by tugging and shifting and adjusting in front of a mirror.

" _Come on, talk to me," Jenny says, leaning forward, blonde hair falling like a curtain over one shoulder, trying to force her brother to look at her._

" _I'm fine," Dan grinds, though he's clearly not fine. He looks out the window agitatedly for the thousandth time._

Erik watches his mother, hot black decaf in a tall mug perched on the coffee table in front of him, from his spot on the floor. Back against the sofa.

" _Let's go for a walk. Just a few minutes- clear our heads." Their father is at the gallery; school is cancelled and they're both finished with their school work (a lack of more interesting alternatives is often the best motivation toward academic excellence); surely it won't hurt anything if they take a turn around the block._

 _At this, Dan's spine tenses. He looks hard at her, and then at the door, as if welding it shut with his glare. "You're not setting foot outside this loft again," he tells her softly, "until it's safe out there."_

 _She rolls her eyes, playing at lightness. "Come on, even if he's in the city, he's not here. It's Brooklyn," she points out, like he doesn't know where they live._

"Mom, come sit down," Erik begs again.

Lily's warm brown eyes, the mirror of his, shift over his face fondly like he's a little boy begging her to play with him. "In a minute, my love."

She's touching every surface, fingers plucking at her and Serena's purse straps, hung on their hooks near the door, like they're harp strings. Skimming the back of a striped armchair, dancing from color to color.

" _What if I crawl out the fire escape?" Jenny tries again, an attempt at getting him to smile. They both know he's the only one who ever uses the fire escape._

 _Dan doesn't respond and she sighs, giving up, and shifts away. He reaches after her. "Don't go anywhere."_

" _I'm not." But he tugs her back down to the sofa and looks away again. "What, I'm just supposed to sit still all day?"_

 _His mouth tightens and he looks over at her, like he's going to respond, but stops. His mouth tightens._

"You're wearing a hole in the floor," Erik teases, clasping his mug in both hands.

Lily smiles sideways at him, checking her phone again to see if anyone has called. She's not sure who she's expecting.

Serena emerges then, with a thick metallic click as her door opens, toweling her wet hair.

"Well, hello," Lily beams at her daughter, like it's morning, when in reality the sun will be going down in an hour or two and they've all been shut up in their rooms all day. "Have you heard from Blair?"

 _Dan's eyes fill with tears._

" _Hey, I'm fine," Jenny says, patting his hand where it's still loosely gripping her upper arm. "You don't have to be so scared. It's fine."_

" _It's not fine," he whispers, echoing her insistence from Monday morning in the limo._

 _Her heart slows down and thuds, heavy, in her chest. She knows what he's seeing now. "That was a long time ago, and it's not the same thing at all, and it's fine. I'm fine."_

Serena blinks, any semblance of peace slipping from her face as it tightens almost imperceptibly. "No," she says quietly. "But that's fine."

Erik's gaze tracks her as she crosses paths with their mother, pouring French press into a tall mug identical to his, and waits for the trickling sound of the cream, and then the tinkle of the spoon.

 _Dan swallows, hard. "I didn't protect you."_

 _She blinks at him. "You did, though."_

And then the second tinkle as she stirs in sugar.

"Any word on calling off the circus animals downstairs?" Serena asks Lily, nodding toward the window, not bothering to raise her eyes from the mug in front of her. She's wearing oddly unstylish clothes, Erik thinks, even for lounging- long pants and a shapeless sweatshirt- and seems to be stirring her coffee for longer than necessary.

Lily tilts her head. "Darling, you know there's nothing he can do," she says, in a tone that implies she's said this more than once before. "It's not like they're coming inside, and…"

"Sidewalks are public property," Serena finishes for her, eyes rolling slowly heavenward.

" _She's going to be okay," Jenny tries, for lack of anything better to say. "Everything is going to go back to normal."_

 _Her brother is unmoved by this, as she should have known he would be. It's her that this is about, not Blair, as proven by the way he looked at her the other night after coming back from the Waldorf penthouse to where she waited in a café a few blocks down. He'd almost run through the door and slid into the seat opposite her, looking around as though making sure no one was looking at his sister the wrong way. She could see that he'd been crying, though he'd done an admirable job of cleaning himself up._ Hi, _she'd said softly, shrugging back the sleeve of her blue turtleneck to look at her watch._ Are you hungry now? It's getting late-

Home, _he'd said quietly, then added,_ please _._

Serena sets down her cup on the coffee table next to those of her mother and brother and picks up her phone, flicking through it idly, then opens and closes drawers on the desk in the corner of the room. She doesn't touch a single thing in any drawer; just opens, closes, softly, mechanically.

And then she starts over again, free hand bouncing against the back of the writing chair she's pulled out in a way that would suggest she had plans to sit down.

Which, Erik knew as he watched her do it, she had no plans to do.

 _And followed her too close through the turnstile, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her on the platform, nudged her with an elbow until she sat down on one of the benches and then stood guard over her, wordless, all the way back to Brooklyn._

 _Jaws clenched the same way they are now. Fists, too._

" _I'd die if anything happened to you," he tells her simply._

" _Likewise," she tries to tease back, jostling his shoulder with hers. "Can I get up, though?"_

 _He smiles a little. "I guess."_

"Sit down with me," Erik implores Serena, leaning his head back against the sofa cushion, tilting it to the side with the most engaging smile he can muster.

He's forgotten what it's like to be surrounded by two skittish Van der Woodsen women.

"In a minute," Serena smiles back, but it doesn't reach her eyes, and then she turns away and is thumbing through last month's Vogue, too fast to look at a single ad.

Lily is straightening the frames of every painting on the gallery wall at the far end of their dining area.

Erik rests his head on the cushion completely, closes his eyes and exhales, long and silent, through his mouth.

 _Jenny presses her laptop into his hands a few minutes later, and he doesn't look up at her until he sees what's on the screen. She bites her lip and hands him his phone, then turns to give him some privacy._

" _I promise not to go out the window," she calls over her shoulder._

vi.

"We were just having breakfast," Serena whispers, sounding more irritated than sorry.

"That's- that's fine."

Pause.

"It doesn't seem like it's fine." Her tone is flippant.

"I'm just- look, I'm just trying to understand how it is that I can barely get ahold of my girlfriend for the past several days, but she has time for breakfast dates with other guys."

"It wasn't a date." She sits down on her bed, watching her makeup-less, wet-hair, un-glamorous reflection in the mirror. "We were up late at Chuck's…"

"You slept over at Chuck's?" He keeps his voice even, but it's clear that it takes effort.

She tilts her head, closing her eyes and struggling to maintain patience too. "No." _He wouldn't let me._ "We were just up late talking, the four of- the three of us."

"Okay."

He seems to be waiting for something, but she doesn't know what.

"Okay?"

"And did Nate sleep at Chuck's?"

She balls her fist and releases it. "You mean, did he come home with me? No, Dan." Her voice spikes, incredulous, insulted.

"I'm not- I'm sorry. I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. I just… you're shutting me out." He clasps his head in his hand. "And I love you."

"I love you, too," she whispers back, voice softening automatically. "I'm having a hard time with all this."

"Can't you… can you talk to me about it?" _Instead of Nate?_

"I will- I'll be able to, it's just- the four of us have been… together, a long time."

There's a pause, a silence that, in Serena's mind, is filled with quizzical looks.

 _Until you slept with her boyfriend,_ she reminds herself. _And wrecked 'the four of us' forever._

"It's complicated," she tries again.

She hears him swallow, the sound of the little breath he takes after. "Okay. Well, I'm- "

" _Dan_!"

Jenny's shriek is piercing and even startles Serena.

Two seconds later, from the living room: " _Serena_!"

She hears Jenny's footfall on the other end of the line and glances back and forth, bedroom door to mirror. There's a quick swish in her ear, and then Jenny's voice comes across: "Serena? Turn on the news."

"Wh-" She's sliding off her bed.

Heavy, urgent knocking on her door. Erik, with his the side of his fist- not his knuckles. "Serena, quick, come out, there's…"

"They have him- _turn on the news-_ they _caught_ him…!" Jenny's exclamations come in quick fragments, Dan's voice intermingling behind her.

He takes the phone back as she's reaching for the door handle. "Oh, my God. They do. Serena- are you seeing this?"

"I'll call you back." She throws the phone behind her, not bothering to hang up.

vii.

Buzz.

"Already have the news on."

"Just doing my job."

"Is it him?"

"Sure looks like it, doesn't it? SWAT team is en route."

Click.

Dial.

"Hello?" She's breathless.

"Are you…"

"Yes, I see," she manages, almost a gasp. "Does it look like… do you think he has a gun? Do you think he's going to try to open fire?"

He pauses, surprised that that's the first thing she says. He'd gladly lie for her if he knew what she wanted to hear. "Hopefully no one gets hurt," he tries.

His phone chimes softly against his ear; he flips open Nate's text.

 _Looks like they got him._

"I c… I need to sit down." She's breathing too hard; he hears a wheeze behind it. "Call you back?"

"I'll wait by the phone."

He tries to make it sound dry and witty.

To Nate: _Not until he's ID'd._

Because he wouldn't say this to Blair, but unless someone on the ground is live-streaming it directly to her, no one can actually see the guy that well yet.

He hesitates and flips open his conversation with Serena. _No bait needed._

Nate: _Buy you a drink if it is._

He runs a hand through his hair, watching the somewhat fuzzy live feed. _Buy you an island,_ he replies without taking his eyes from the television.

viii.

"Imbeciles."

Eleanor punctuates the word with a flourish of a hand gesture as she turns off the television.

Blair's shoulders slump. Her face crumples.

Her father shoots her mother a warning look and buries a hand in his daughter's hair without a word, tugging her close. She presses her face into his shoulder and cries.

ix.

Buzz.

His father doesn't bother to say hello.

"What a disappointment." He doesn't even need to sigh; it's contained in the words somehow. "I certainly hope she wasn't watching."

"She was."

He's perched, defeated, at the foot of his bed.

Bart clears his throat. "I've sent out an all-points bulletin to every building with a full report and photos."

"Thank you," Chuck sighs.

"Charles," his father starts, and then pauses as though double-checking a phrase in a foreign language before he says it: "This makes me angry."

A bemused smile tugs at his lips. He tries to think- has he ever heard his father identify an emotion to him, other than _'Charles, I'm disappointed in you'_?

"Me, too."

"But you need to keep your hands out of it. Can you agree to that?"

He flops back, lazily, eyes closed. Of course Tyler is probably sending his father summaries of every conversation they have.

"My hands aren't in it," he points out, words dancing, smug and precocious. "I'm at home in my suite."

"If you had the chance, or any credible lead, I'm not sure that would continue to be true."

"We'll never know." He's trying his father's patience, and he knows it.

On cue, Bart's tone sharpens. "Son. I want your word that you'll stay out of it."

"Father." He opens his eyes and looks at his ceiling, delicate crown molding meeting the wainscoted walls. "Would you agree to that, if it were Lily?"

Too late, he realizes what he's said.

Silence.

He blinks rapidly and clears his throat, scrabbling for something, anything to say to divert his father's attention.

 _People I care about._

"Blair is my friend- one of my oldest friends. I care about her, she's- important to me. _I'm_ angry, too."

Silence again, and then, with a surprising hint of softness: "I understand. But let the law have its way."

Four texts.

Nate: _Dammit._

Serena: _Spoke too soon, Bass._ (She never calls him Bass.)

Nate again: _Offer for a drink is still good. Can we extend the island offer?_

And, just a minute ago, somehow oozing bravado through letters on a screen, Blair: _Well, hope you didn't disband the sniper army yet._


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Wow, this chapter was quite the trip to write. There's so much going on and it's a delicious challenge to pull it all together. I really hope you'll all enjoy it! And thank you, thank you as always for your kind reviews, follows, favorites and PMs! (I've tried to write each of my followers/favorite-rs a thank-you note, but I toggle between the app and the website and I'm not sure messages translate between the two mediums; at least they don't for me.) I want to let you all know that your dedication in reading and being such a supportive audience means everything to me, and I'm so grateful! =)**

i.

 _January 17_

 _Late afternoon_

When the television screen is thirty seconds dark in shamed silence, she walks away.

Her father's hands slide over her hair and shoulders and arms, twitching like they're going to grasp at her elbows and make her stay, but he decides against it and she wheels around, first few steps small and unsteady. The television is off and there's an awful quiet that she wishes was deadly, but isn't. She swallows hard, sleeves of her blue sweater coming up to dab at her wet cheeks and avoiding her stitched cheek and lip in second nature, like she's been doing so all her life.

"I'm going upstairs," she says. She hears her mother take a step behind her, and then stop- perhaps she thinks better of it or perhaps her father holds up a hand in warning.

The silence follows her all the way up the stairs, which she ascends slowly, teeth gritting to avoid showing how much her ribs are smarting. She doesn't lock her door, acutely aware of the straining of her parents' ears toward the second floor, listening for the click.

She texts Chuck, expression flat and impassive- incongruous with the tears that begin to flow again once she shuts herself in her bedroom- as she types out the quip. She can't call him, can't call anyone like this.

She flips a movie on- selecting randomly from the queue of Audrey downloaded to her laptop- and cranks the volume.

Buzz.

Serena: _I saw. Are you okay?_

She lays the laptop on her vanity, close to her door. So her parents will hear it if they stop outside to listen. So they'll leave her alone.

Flips open her phone and channels her brave face once more.

ii.

"I know, but this is what happens when there's a public panic. People insist they're sure, and then the mob mentality develops and suddenly you're having citizens arrests left and right." Tyler heaves a ragged sigh. "Not that this is your problem, but it's a nightmare for dispatch."

No, it's not his problem. "Are there any other strong leads?"

A half-syllable forms and dies in Tyler's throat, then he thinks better of it. "They're pouring in now. We're just trying to keep up with evaluating every entry from the slush pile."

"Efficient." Mockery drips audibly. "And the exercise of tracing his movements by surveillance footage?"

"Lost his trail on the cameras. He was heading uptown, toward Upper East, so it's likely he's living or staying there- or maybe just that he was doing another errand after the dry cleaning. Even if he is living there, that hardly narrows it down. It's not like we can go door to door."

Chuck's hand squeezes his own leg in frustration and releases. "And why is that?"

"We're-" Tyler pulls away from the mouthpiece and responds in the affirmative to a flurry of voices on the other side. "Because we're not the Gestapo. This is already a federal manhunt and we're pulling resources from the tri-state area and beyond, but there's a limit to what even this level of staffing can do." He pauses. "We just got a promising photo from Stuytown. I have to go."

He texts Nate back, flipping over the picture of him and Serena stepping off the elevator seventeen floors below from this morning, adding it to his stack. _Maybe stay out of dodge for the rest of the day._

He's getting in the shower- hot water running and steam billowing, to wash off the sweat of fevered sleep and adrenaline and _if it were Lily_ \- when his phone buzzes on the counter.

Serena: _So. Bait time?_

iii.

 _Evening_

It's hours later when she awakens. Audrey has run her course and the laptop is asleep; her phone is buried in the folds of her duvet. Several seconds tick by before she's fully cognizant: first of where she is; then, of why; and last, of what woke her up.

Texts from Serena as their conversation trailed into darkness, sleep claiming her, a sharp discomfort in her side because heaving with sobs that she's desperate to conceal into her pillow is not something she should be doing with two broken ribs.

 _Here for you. I love you._

 _Do you want any company?_

 _Just let me know. I'm free for you any time day or night._

And with the sudden prickle of a fingernail scraping down her spine, she realizes how damp she is. Scalp hot, hairline saturated with sweat; back of her collar cold and wet against her nape. Small of her back staining her lounge pants with the uncomfortable chill of a frantic nightmare.

She flicks Serena away.

Chuck, hours ago: _Very much intact. Considering using paparazzi for target practice. Thoughts?_

She starts to smile, but shivers instead and, when she braces a hand against the mattress to maneuver out of bed, feels how clammy it is.

She texts Dorota. _Pajamas. Warm and dry. Need to shower ASAP._ And then: _Change of sheets, too._

Her phone buzzes again as Dorota knocks with impressive punctuality, and she pauses in the middle of carefully tugging her sweater over her head, pants already stripped off and puddled behind her where she kicked them. She pauses, reminding herself not to contort against the already-aching soreness in her side, and plucks the neckline up with one hand. Even the effort of drawing her arm up is staggeringly painful, much more so than a day or two ago, but she's determined that she doesn't need Dorota to undress her anymore.

"Come in," she says triumphantly, nonetheless hissing at the final yank to get it over her head as the door opens behind her. She turns. "I'm freezing-"

It's not Dorota.

iv.

It beats on in his mind, already exhausted, a hydraulic pump that whirs and glides, never stopping.

She didn't slip away.

He thought she would have, was sure. She was supposed to.

His eyes had locked on her face, smiling up from a photo in a street-corner trash can, an insert from a newspaper that looked to have been ripped out and discarded. He only saw half of her smile at a glance but knew it at once. He knew that face, that open, pretty face. Delicate nose, wide eyes. So familiar.

He'd stopped when he saw the words around her on the page.

Wrist nonchalant on his shoulder, plastic garment covering draped over his back, walking home, he drifted to a stop. Someone jostled him from behind, "oh- sorry," and then a raw breeze whipped against his face, but everything was already going gray around him.

Stepped closer, steady, and picked it up. And turned and walked the rest of the way back, with her in his fingers.

And he stared at her, first in his kitchen and then sitting on the edge of his bed, fresh dry cleaning on the smoothed bedspread behind him, for what seemed like a few minutes but what he knew must have been longer, the sun setting and then rising again before he got the chance to get up and turn on the light.

He found himself smiling fondly at her in the dark, his anger at her for being a whore having dissipated somewhat. He'd learned about forgiveness in therapy, pleased at the release he got from forgiving himself, pleased at how gratified his therapist was to hear him say it. He'd said it over and over. _I forgive myself._

He'd asked for forgiveness, been granted it. Surely he could forgive her for failing him. Maybe, like him, she needed a second chance.

v.

 _Earlier_

Buzz-

 _You okay?_

 _Of course not._

 _Can I call you? Or come up and see you?_

 _Not a good time. I need to be ready in case she needs me._

 _How is she doing?_

Looking out over Midtown, long since dark, though it's just past dinnertime. Her room faces westward; she can see the park if she cranes her head to the right.

Madison Avenue, a straight shot from here to the Waldorf penthouse. She could be in a cab in under five minutes.

 _She's Blair._

vi.

The sighting near Stuytown is, of course, another bust. Looking at the attachment Tyler surreptitiously sends him afterward, other than the ambiguous basics- tall, dark hair and eyebrows, average build- he sees nothing that should have incited such certainty that this was their guy.

Part of the mob mentality, Tyler tells him.

"People see what they want to see. A stranger's face, with even slightly approximated features to the ones they're looking for, morphs into a doppelganger. When people are afraid, they tend to fill unknown people and spaces with their own fears. Sort of the same way criminals don't tend to see their victims as people; they're objects, or obstacles. Expendable." Shuffling of papers; the thud of a heavy file being dropped unceremoniously on the top of a desk. "Which is why profiling is such a difficult task."

 _Expendable._

 _Rode hard and put away wet._

He glances at his reflection, distorted, in the polished chrome of his refrigerator. Dosed to kill, left to die, ribs shattered and face bleeding, exposed, vulnerable. Expendable.

His phone chimes against his ear. Her. _Love it. Fire away._

vii.

He sleeps, deep and furious, dreaming of dark hair and graceful features, when the sun begins to somersault again into darkness. When he wakes, still holding the photographs of her- her smile blurring, the ink beginning to rub off of the cheap newspaper onto his sweating hands- it's back up, bright and happy.

When he looks down at the now-hazy image of her smile, she looks exactly, exactly, like…

And he stills for a moment, and he's not sure why.

Because that's what he wanted. That's why she was so perfect. Made for him.

His mind echoes- _Please, please, don't-_ and he turns the hot water in his shower all the way up, so that it hurts him when he gets in. Heat searing on his chest, his shoulders prick forward like he's going to curl up in a ball, and his lips form the words over and over, a silent scream.

viii.

Her eyes are wide with alarm. "Get out," she hisses.

He's frozen, lips parted. "Blair…" She can hear him gasping a breath as she yanks her damp sweater to cover her bare chest, the quick movement sending a jolt through her.

"Get _out_ ," she says again, voice rising. She moves then, turning away- though he can still see the horrible deep purple on her ribs, the evil black word stitched into her leg.

Why did no one tell him about that? They must know, they must-

Blair backs against the closed door of her bathroom now. "Nate, please." Her voice quavers. He gets his bearings and stumbles backward, knocking into the corner of the door that's only partly ajar, and shuts it with a soft click behind him.

He holds onto the knob for a long time, swallowing, over and over and over.

He turns and presses his own back against the wall, slides down and puts his head in his hands. "Fuck," he whispers, eyes welling with tears. The stuffed bulldog is tucked under his arm, and it slips out and slumps over onto its side, little legs splayed into the air like it's dead and rigor mortis has set in. _This is sure to cheer her up,_ his mother had said, holding it up for him, white "Y" embroidered on the navy scarf round its neck. _To keep her company._

The door opens next to him and she looks down. She's put the blue pajamas back on, and she's hugging her own waist, chin quivering from cold or misery.

"What are you doing here?" she asks at a whisper.

"I…" He holds up the bulldog, then scrambles to his feet. "I came to apologize to your parents about the tabloid spread- and bring you this."

She doesn't reach for it.

But really, those were excuses, and he knows it and she probably does too. The real reason he came here is to ask her to talk to Serena, to tell her Serena wants to help her and he thinks she can, that they're better together, they always have been.

Instead, his mouth opens and what comes out is: "I'm – I'm so sorry, Blair." And his nose grows hot and tingles and then he's crying in front of her. "I'm so sorry. Please, can you forgive me for last week, for…"

 _For everything. For Serena. For starting this whole mess that ended with you being alone that night._

He started it. He knows it; they all do. He may be the pretty, stupid one- he knows that- but he's not _that_ stupid.

She swallows, eyes brimming. "Don't…"

He drops the bulldog and puts both hands on her hair, raking gently through her damp locks, withdrawing when they hit tangles. He presses a long kiss to the top of her head.

"You know I love you, right?"

She stiffens, imperceptibly, draws away. "Nate…" She's crying now, crying like she never has in front of him.

"You know, right?"

"You don't have to…"

"I love you, I always will. I never would have- I never wanted- " But he stops, because he can't say _I never wanted this,_ because of course he didn't.

"It's okay," she whispers up at him.

He looks down, wiping his eyes distractedly. "Can I hug you?" His hands touch her elbows, tentative.

And she smiles a little, sad- he's struck by how much her half-smile looks like Serena's. Like they match up perfectly, regardless of where they are.

"You have to be careful," she murmurs.

He puts his arms around her, loose, more an encircling than an embrace, fingertips patting ever so gently at her shoulder, her hair, the back of her head. But his eyes are dark with anger, so dark that they almost miss the vase of peonies on her bedside table. Short-stemmed peonies. A hand bouquet that he did not bring.

 _I don't care what the tabloids say,_ his mother huffed at him an hour or so earlier. _And you shouldn't either. They're a way of life for people like us. Are you going to let that become more important to you than supporting Blair right now?_

And he really couldn't argue with that. Though she did seem to spend a lot of time flipping through them the last few days, for someone who didn't care, he'd thought as he kissed her on the cheek while she stood at the kitchen counter, tsk-tsking at the spread on him from this morning. Struggling up Madison toward this very building with that enormous arrangement that she'd insisted he go to pick up in person.

He closes his eyes. She's right. That's not more important than Blair is.

"Is there anything, anything, I can do to help you?"

Blair chuckles through a sob, but it turns into a cough when she inhales her own tears, and then she's holding his forearm against her side, against that spot he can't get out of his mind, and it's flexing terribly with each rack of her rib cage. She presses her face into his chest. He flattens his other palm on her back, between her shoulder blades, feeling the force of every exhalation.

All the times he's seen her legs, in shorts and bikinis and skirts, and all it took was this one glance to overwrite it all forever.

The cough subsides and she lets go of his arm. "I have to hold something against me when I cough," she mutters.

"Just tell me what I can do," he says, bending his knees a little, leaning back, so he can look in her eyes.

She clears her throat primly. "If you happen to bump into the guy, can you punch him out for me?"

He smiles. "I'd love to."

She gestures into the hallway behind him. "And give me that bulldog."

He stays with her while Dorota changes her sheets, quiet and watchful, and then she excuses herself to take a shower. On Sunday, when they did the crossword and traded sections of the paper, it settled into him uncomfortably that he'd done wrong by her, terribly, terribly wrong. Maybe he could make it up to her in some way, he thought then; maybe make her smile with the bulldog, the flowers- his mother really is better at these things than he- maybe help her talk to Serena, he thought today. Serena, who was dying without her and he was sure it was mutual. Had to be.

But the marked girl he saw when he opened the door was not Blair, and protective anger for his first kiss, his first hand-hold, his first- not everything, but many things- flooded him when she looked up and saw him, him, _Nate_ , and backed away, almost cowering.

When she thanks him for coming, he says, "I love you, Blair," again, like he has a million times, even as the memory of the feeling of Serena's fingers and knee against his palm tells him that that's not the whole story. It never was. He knows that.

She pauses and looks at him like she knows it, too. "You, too, Archibald."

ix.

Her forehead is still resting against the glass of her window, looking uptown, up Madison where she now doesn't have the nerve to go without being asked.

She remembers how, a week ago tonight, she took the elevator up out of the freezing rain, only to be told Miss Blair hadn't come home yet.

 _That's okay,_ she said then, taking a seat on the chaise in the sitting room. _I'll wait for her._

(She did not say _: I'll wait all night, to tell her she's not on her own. She'll never be on her own. I'll always be here for her._ )

Flicking up and down on her phone, checking for Gossip Girl blasts, double-checking for texts back. Confusion setting in as minutes, then an hour, ticked by.

Calling, at last, the one person who seemed somewhat likely to know. Going to voicemail; her subsequent calls fired straight into his mailbox, no rings. Rolling her eyes because he's obviously silenced her calls and, really, he's the one who started this whole mess.

( _If you see her, or hear from her…)_

Her phone buzzes, and she opens the eyes she didn't realize she closed. "Fuck," she mutters to herself, defeated, at the way her heart soars and dives when she opens it and sees who it is.

 _I want you to know I love you and I'm here for you._

She sighs. _I know. Thank you._

 _Is there anything I can do?_

Her mouth twists into a scowl that she knows is unfair. _Unless you can find some way to hand the guy over to the NYPD, not really._

She leans her forehead back against the glass.

x.

Just past ten, there's yet another false alarm, this time on the Upper East. He doesn't even bother to sweat this time.

He's with Erik in 1812, eating room service, Erik having texted forty minutes before- _Almost-brother, any chance you're free for dinner? Have to get out of here for a few._

Smirk. He bet.

 _Sure, if you promise to come alone._

And come alone he did, in comical fashion, a hooded cable-knit sweater with the hood pulled up as if he was traveling incognito and not taking an elevator three floors from his mother's suite to his.

Lily wouldn't let him visit her, Erik explained. She thought it would be too hard for him. Mess him up in some way. "As if it's not messing me up just knowing what happened to her," Erik says, not lifting his gaze as he cuts his steak.

Spearing a bite with a slice of roasted carrot: Serena feels helpless- it's obvious, she's barely sat still all day- and she hates feeling helpless. She'd get like this, when they were younger, every time Lily got serious with a guy.

Erik- he hushes his voice at this, draining the splash of red he agreed to, since it paired so well with the filet- always thought his mom sort of wished Serena would be more like Blair.

Chuck nods confidentially, thinking that most mothers of girls like Serena probably want their daughters to be more like Blair.

Erik, patting at his mouth with his napkin, always… always thought of her as a sister. You know?- Well- (with a chuckle and a flippant hand gesture) maybe you don't think of most girls like sisters.

One corner of Chuck's mouth curves up and then settles, remembering how limp she was in his arms, how small in her hospital bed; how soft and quiet, patting her duvet with her bandaged hand while he tugged at his tie.

"No, I guess not," he agrees.

Erik pushes his plate away, inclining his head toward his older almost-brother, dark brown eyes- so like Lily's; Serena must have gotten her father's eyes- resting without hesitation on Chuck's face. Not flitting away.

"And how are you doing with all this?"

xi.

Time slides away, lost in the pounding of the water (one of the things he loves about living in the city is that the hot water never seems to run out), and when he finally steps out he's stinging and raw and his hands are shaky. But he shaves anyway, wiping away the steam on the mirror over and over as it re-fogs. He cuts himself and pauses to watch the blood trickle down his neck.

He's not sure if what he hears is her voice, or his.

And he can't understand, no matter how hard he listens, if the voice is requesting- _please, please, I'm begging you, I'll do anything-_ for it to stop or for it to keep going.

He always- he loved it- and so did she- she just wasn't- she was a whore- so she wasn't the right- she must have loved it- he- didn't he?-

He drops the razor and sinks to his knees, shaving cream dripping in the damp air, head resting on the bathroom counter.

That smile, wide brown eyes…

Whose? Whose…? He can't-

And it cracks through him then, louder, his own voice- _stop, please, please, stop-_

And his own, again, deeper, sharper-

 _You love it. You whore. WHORE._

Panicked, spiking in a squeal, breath taut in small lungs: _Please, please, don't, I'm begging you-_

He covers his ears and stays there, curled on the floor, until it stops.

xii.

He and Erik part ways at the elevator bank just before midnight, and he's barely taken a sip of his Scotch when he hears a familiar click-clack.

"Good evening, Charles. I thought I might find you here." Lily slides easily next to him, holding up an oversized dossier. "I was hoping I could prevail upon you to grace me with your good taste once more."

"I'd be delighted."

She flips it open and there is the copper-and-celadon bathroom.

He snickers and takes a thoughtful sip. "That was fast."

"Any project connected with your father commands a certain amount of urgency," she agrees. To Andrew, who's on the bar tonight: "Hot water with lemon, please."

"Make that two," he adds with a tilt of his head.

Lily's hand covers his, the one that's loosely palming his Scotch. He looks up. "I want you to know you're more than welcome to stay with us," she says, smooth and warm, eyes never leaving his. The steadiness focused upon him by two brown sets of Van der Woodsen eyes in as many hours is unnerving. "I don't think any of us should be alone right now. Your father insists on staying in the penthouse, but perhaps not all Bass men are so stubborn."

He licks his lips, taken aback. "That's very kind of you, Lily, I appreciate it- "

She squeezes. "I know you've been on your own a while, and I'm not suggesting you can't manage, but maybe- just since we've all been through a difficult time. We have a spare bedroom and I'd be thrilled if you'd join us." She pauses, and then: "And furthermore, I very much hope you'll move into the penthouse with all of us after the wedding."

Her offer is so tender and sincere that it almost overwrites the irony that he doesn't live in the penthouse now, with his own father- as all logic would dictate- and hasn't for a few years.

"I think we should discuss that with my father," he says, carefully. His father "surprised" him with his own suite for his birthday one year, not long after- well, one particularly emphatic disappointment- and deciding to reverse that decision without his input is probably not a wise idea.

Lily just blinks through her smile and releases his hand. "Happy to. You think about both. Your father is accompanying me to the designer tomorrow. He wants to go with me every time I leave the building until that- man- is caught. And we're stopping by the Waldorfs' on the way back, since they're practically under house arrest. But I won't speak a word to your father until you've thought about it."

His heart aches, not for the first time, at the way she talks to him and looks at him. He nudges away his Scotch when the hot water with lemon comes. "Thank you," is all he can think to say.

"Nonsense."

She turns a page and lays one perfectly manicured red fingernail in the middle of the page. "Now, let's talk about these sconces. I had envisioned copper, but now I look at it all laid out, I'm worried the presence of the metal might be overpowering because-" she breaks off and chuckles, plucking the lemon wedge from its perch on the rim of her teacup and squeezing the juice in. Unlike her daughter, she doesn't lick her fingers clean, just subtly presses them into the linen napkin Andrew laid out for her. "Well, because look at how big that bathtub is."

He shakes his head, blowing steam across the surface of his cup. "I'm the wrong person to ask. I dislike sconces. They always seem like clutter to me. I prefer recessed lighting."

She laughs, a real laugh, and nudges him with her elbow, lowering her voice like she's about to tell him a secret. "When you're my age, you won't want overhead lighting, Charles- trust me on this."

"Recessed lighting can be employed horizontally, around the mirror, like so," he points out, tracing his finger on the page. "More thoughtfully done, subtle, and flattering."

Lily taps her lips with one finger. "You might be onto something," she allows, hesitant to give up on the sconces. "They'd have to be spaced just right-"

Buzz.

They both reach for their pockets.

"And," she says as she digs in the folds of her oversized sweater, "we'd have to think about the rest of the bathroom- _all_ recessed lighting, or- ?"

It's him.

It's Blair.

He inclines the phone toward her, and she stills, seeing the illuminated name. "Take it," she says at once.

"I'm so sorry."

"Not at all."

"Hello?"

"Hi." Blair sounds small and strangled. "Are you busy?"

His eyes meet Lily's. Without a word, she flips the dossier shut.

"No," he says.

"What are you doing?"

"Having a drink." He punctuates it with a sip of hot water, which she'll probably think is Scotch.

"I'm jealous." It's almost a whisper, and then nothing.

Beside him, Lily has gotten to her feet, swallowing the last of the hot water, which surely burned her throat. She gestures upward, indicating their suite, and makes a careless beckoning motion with one hand, _You're welcome to come up._

He smiles and nods.

"Ask Dorota," he suggests to Blair, and then is caught off guard when Lily's hand cups his head, ruffling his hair like she's done before, and she kisses him on the brow.

"Goodnight, darling," she whispers, before hurrying away.

He watches after her, thinking how lucky Eric and Serena are to have a parent who has even the capacity, let alone the inclination, to pour warmth like that.

"I actually…" Blair is saying, then pausing, and then a little firmer: "I actually wanted to ask you."

"You want me to bring you a drink?" he teases. "I'm sure your kitchen is fully stocked- or are you requesting my mixology expertise?"

"No, I…"

His smirk freezes, because her tone is flat and low and urgent.

"I was wondering- do you have anything stronger?"

He drains his teacup and reaches for his half-full Scotch. "Like what?"

"Like, anything that could… put me to sleep."

He blinks. "No," he lies.

She pauses. "You don't have anything that could knock me out?"

"I do."

"But?"

"But I can't give you sleeping pills. You're injured…"

It sounds like she's cupping her hand around the phone. "And it's keeping me from _sleeping_."

"Then you should call your doctor." Blair doesn't take pills. She never has. He's not going to be the person that gives her pills. And certainly not like this.

"They won't give me anything," she complains, her eyeroll almost audible, like when she whined about her blankets being too hot as her temperature normalized in the ER. "They're a bunch of quacks."

He takes his last sip of Scotch and gestures thanks to Andrew, thinking she sounds like her mother and knowing better than to say it.

"I can't."

"Please?" It's so plaintive and bald that it tugs at his conscience. "Painkillers, tranquilizers- anything? I'll take a small dose." She pauses. "It really hurts."

It doesn't, really. Not that much. If it did, she'd get them from a doctor.

She just wants to leave this world behind, if even for a few hours.

"Blair…" He's halfway across the floor of Divine now, phone held to his ear carefully, like he's holding her in his hands.

"I can't sleep. I can't fall asleep." There's a little gasp; maybe she's shifted positions and hurt herself. "I need to sleep- I really need to just sleep," she implores.

 _She was having a nightmare…_

"Tranquilizers don't guarantee sound sleep," he tells her. He knows from personal experience: they don't block everything out.

"I can't even shut my eyes long enough to fall asleep when it's dark out."

 _I'm surprised how nervous I am, knowing he's here._

"Want me to come over? I'll sleep outside your bedroom door."

She scoffs, at last. "I don't think that's necessary."

He pushes the Up button. "In the elevator?"

There's a soft puff of air, an exhalation more than a chuckle. "… Can you just make it go away? The… manhunt, I mean. Just… go away?"

 _I'm trying._

"Sniper army is all over it," he says as the golden doors close in front of him.

"Can you send them home? Just call it off? I'll pay a premium." Finally, a tease.

"We can negotiate something. I accept cash or credit card; no personal checks."

"Don't forget to add the reimbursement for your Prada shoes that got ruined the other day," she fires back.

"Bill's already in the mail."

She lets out a peal of laughter that cuts off abruptly after two seconds. He remembers the way her breath hissed into the phone while they watched the NYPD close in on the guy on the train.

He's badging into 1812 when she says, "You know…"

He pauses just over the threshold, holding the door open, not wanting to break the pause with the click of the door.

"He could slip away, any time. He could have gone down to the seaport and gotten on a boat days ago. He could have- dyed his hair and put on a… you know, one of those ugly knitted caps and a pair of glasses…"

He lets the door swing as close to shut as he can without making any noise.

"And he'd look completely different. He could have walked over a bridge and gotten onto a bus in New Jersey and be in one of the square states by now. Or jumped into the East River and his body won't wash up for months."

That should be a delicious thought, the guy's body floating in that toxic runoff from God knows where, but it's nowhere near enough for him. Nowhere _near_ enough.

He shuts the door.

"He could have."

"Do you know anything?"

He lays his badge on the bar and kicks off his shoes. "No. If I did, I'd tell you."

His phone chimes, and he sees Nate's name and turns his ring on silent.

"Really?" The vulnerability, the hope, is raw in her voice. She wants him to know something, wants him to have something to tell her.

"There are tons of leads," he tries. "If he's here, they'll find him."

She sucks in a breath. "And if he's left?"

 _I'll find him._

"He's not going to hurt you again," he tells her, low, cradling the phone on his shoulder and stripping out of his trousers, then unbuttoning his shirt.

Her voice is so quiet he has to strain to hear her. "I can't hide in here forever. What if they can't find him? What would I do then? How can things go back to normal? Ever?"

He runs a hand through his hair and leans on his pillows, gaze tilting up at the juncture of ceiling and wall he was looking at when he said, _if it were Lily_?

It will never go back to normal. Ever. They both know that. They all do.

He's quiet for too long.

"It could be weeks, or months… or never." Her voice cracks, fatigue and anxiety splintering through reason.

He clenches his teeth. "It's not going to be never. Except _never_ will he come near you again." He sounds annoyingly like a protective boyfriend, but she takes another pained-sounding breath, and there's a gulp like she's swallowing back tears, and he doesn't care.

"Oh, God." She breathes in and out, in and out. "Say something funny."

He flourishes his free hand, rolling his eyes heavenward. " 'Knock-off Hermes.' "

She snorts, then winces.

It's worth it.

They stay on the phone another hour, two hours, conversation swelling and fading into silence, until she murmurs, "I think I can fall asleep now."

"I can stay up," he offers, though he's struggling to keep his eyes open.

"With all the lights on, like a little girl," she mutters disdainfully.

He turns on his side, like he did in this very same spot when she came back to bed that night, hem of his gray sweater brushing her thighs and slipping over one shoulder. _It's cold._

"Sleep now. No one's going to hurt you." More promises- these ones, he's keeping.

She'd woken up a few hours later, chilled past comfort, and snuggled even closer to him. _Come here_ , he'd murmured, sleepy, wrapping the blankets tighter and tucking them underneath them both, slipping both arms around her back, tangling their legs. Neither of them had suggested turning up the thermostat.

"Call me if you hear anything," she murmurs, sleepy, and he hears the rustling of her duvet.

xiii.

New York City is known worldwide as "the city that never sleeps." And so it is.

Tonight, it's a city that's lit up like a Christmas tree, more so than usual, even as its surrounding boroughs are not yet fully recovered from last week's power outage. Floodlights, streetlights, lights in residences and offices and even parking garages seem brighter and more expansive than normal.

It's a city whose king sits awake in his penthouse, in one of the most luxurious hotels on the island, favorite armchair drawn up to the floor-to-ceiling windows in his upstairs study, drinking a tall glass of water he poured himself from his kitchen tap and massaging his temples with two fingers, cell phone tucked away in his bedside drawer next to the long-empty perfume bottle of the wife whose vacant side of the bed he can't quite give up yet- not for a few more months.

It's a city whose soon-to-be queen consort also sits awake, thirty four floors below, tailored jeans and chic oversized sweater and the obligatory bottle of wine that she didn't want her future stepson to see quite yet- let him think she's as classy and refined and in control, in total, complete control, as the kind of woman that his father ought to be marrying- bare feet pulled close under her knees, just one tear now and again, nose running clear liquid that she occasionally wipes, with a dip of her head, on her denim.

It's a city whose It Girl braids and re-braids her hair, organizes her nail polish colors, rearranges her shoe collection, cleans her earrings, untangles her necklaces, matches up pairs in her disaster of a sock drawer, and even dusts her dust-free shelves and television with a Kleenex that she tosses away proudly as though she's just restored an abandoned Victorian mansion, before sticking her head around her brother's door and blowing him a kiss, which he pantomimes catching in his palm and flicking back at her before she closes his door behind her.

It's a city whose one-time old-money power couple manages to find their way back to each other in the middle of the night: former husband finding his way to former wife with the carafe of Colombian dark roast left on the kitchen counter, on a tray set with two coffee cups, without comment or notice; pajamas under robes, window seat of the sitting room, no makeup on her face, no socks on his feet; a passing smile as they settle, tray between them, into silence, looking out over the unusually luminous city that still feels, to both of them, like a shell of their former life.

It's a city whose fallen princess drifts, at long last, into sleep, lights on, deadbolt turned, books stacked inside both doorways so the crash will alert her if they're opened, cell phone clutched in her palm, duvet tucked around her, snug and warm.

It's a city whose peasants (read: Brooklynites) say goodnight at least four times, and retire to their beds with the door open between them tonight, only for the blonde one to start awake with more fear than she'd admit when she senses a shift in the floor boards, a presence drawing near; _just me-_ _what are you doing?- I'm going to stay over here tonight- you can't sleep on the floor- it's just this once- you're being ridiculous- go back to sleep-_ you _go back to_ bed- _do you want to wake up Dad?!_ \- and reach a hand down when the dark-haired one settles himself, rolled in the quilt from his bed and pillow mashed against her nightstand, and squeeze his wrist, eliciting a smile from him, while he replays, over and over, in his mind, _Unless you can find some way to hand the guy over to the NYPD…_ and thinks, listening to his sister's breathing even and slow, seeing the raw pink edges that peeked out from the black-stitched lines of Blair Waldorf's face, what he wouldn't give to have this guy locked up forever.

What he wouldn't give.

XOXO.


	15. Chapter 15

**Hello, dearest readers! Thank you for joining me for this very important chapter. It's almost twice as long as the usual ones, and I hope very much that you'll enjoy and possibly let me know what you think- I've been dreaming about writing this one for a while. =)**

i.

 _January 18_

 _Early morning_

She may sleep well that night (she does, he finds out later), but he tosses and turns. The nightmare recurs, Blair's bare feet arching around rib cage- ribs seven and eight- in her red coat with the black velvet lines, headband missing, mouth already bleeding, silent, the guy on top of her in his- Chuck's- bed. Over and over. He tries to reach her, but he can't, because she's silent and it's silent and he can't even hear himself yell her name, but he knows he's yelling, knows it by the strain in his chest.

Her stockings come off the second time, feet struggling, flesh of her leg still beautifully unbranded.

The third, her face is bloody. The next time he rises to consciousness after this, he can't let himself sink back down.

He can't face what happens next.

A good two hours before dawn, he gets up, lungs still closer to bellowing than not, and pours himself a drink. The city seems unusually beautiful, gray and frozen before his windows. Maybe it's always like this, but he never notices because he's drunk- at least- if he's up at this hour.

He can't look at his bed.

He closes his eyes. He wants to hear her scream. He wills it into his ears, finding her voice, memories splintering into him of her shrieking during pool splashing and Serena tickling her and the delighted squeal when her phone lights up and it's her father.

Drink in one hand, he sinks down on the loveseat and rests his forehead in the other.

"Scream, Blair," he whispers. He finishes the Scotch slowly, fatigue clouding him, almost nodding off several times.

 _Scream. Come on._

In the end he can't walk back to bed. He slumps to his side and closes his eyes, not willing to even look at it, not willing to even approach it to get to the closet where the blankets are. He'd rather be cold.

He visualizes it differently, hands over his eyes before he lets himself slide away again.

His back tenses in his sleep, which could be because he's in boxers only and bare-chested in the early morning, if not for the taut flexing of his feet against the side of the love seat.

This time, she screams. This time, he's there when she needs him.

This time, he has her in his arms still in her coat, before her legs are spread, and they leave the guy behind them: carved open, bones broken, joints bent at odd angles, blood trickling from the mouth that lets out one last wispy breath.

It's Nate's fault that his phone is on silent. In his exhaustion, he forgot to turn the ringer back on before slipping away to his first nightmare, and so it is that he misses it- that distinctive chime that should nudge him awake, if ever a Pavlovian reaction existed- a few hours later, while he's saving her for at least the dozenth time, catching the guy earlier and earlier in every iteration, perfecting his movements so he kills faster and gets her away sooner, so that this time her headband is still in place and she muffles her scream into his shoulder-

 _Good morning, Upper East Siders._

ii.

 _8:01 AM_

Her heart sinks when she hears the chime; it's the first one in a week. Over a week.

Dorota has just gone back downstairs, leaving a tray of tea and a shrimp omelette with spinach and fresh dill and crispy asparagus perched, bridgelike, over Blair's lap. She's pouring Mariage Freres when the chime skips up from her tangled duvet. The first decent sleep she's had in days- since Monday, with a hand firmly cradled in her elbow.

It's probably something stupid. Definitely.

She keeps pouring.

Probably something about Penelope and Hazel getting stir crazy from missing school, or someone throwing a rager upstate this weekend to let everyone escape lockdown; the Adirondacks _are_ charming this time of year, or-

It chimes again.

She breathes deeper, clenching her teeth and forcing every stroke of air in and out her nose. The tea is perfect and she lifts it to her lips, splinted hand coming up to clumsily cut into the egg, because she may be slightly limited but she's _not_ broken, and she can certainly handle her own breakfast, and can handle anything, any stupid insignificant-

And again.

She closes her eyes, taking a long, satisfied sip before carefully putting down the fork. She places the teacup back onto its saucer with tender attention, ensuring that its base fits into the circular rim.

Clears her throat.

Reaches for her phone and flips open the first part of the blast.

Her lips part softly as she reads the words.

 _Good morning, Upper East Siders._

 _I'm sorry to hurry you out of your silk pajamas, but I come to you this morning bearing an APB. The dark foe who brought down our queen has been identified and is believed to still be alive and well, and lurking on our fair island._

 _We can't have that, can we?_

iii.

 _9:21 AM_

Erik's breathing is heavy under his robe when he opens the door and leans in.

"Have you seen it?"

Serena pauses, lavender-scented sleep mask pried away from one eye with a palm-out index finger, and squints at him. "What?"

"Where's your phone?"

The urgency in his voice is like a string pulling her spine upward to straight. He's climbing on her bed while she scrabbles for her phone, almost knocking it from her nightstand. She flings the mask away.

"What…"

One hand rubs over cheekbone, browbone, pushes her hair behind her ear.

She flicks through notifications: Dan, Dan, Nate, updates from the Constance portal-

"How long ago?"

Finally she finds it, just as Erik answers: "An hour. I missed it. I was asleep."

"Oh, God."

"Make sure you read them all." His eyes are hot on her face.

Serena's frowns, surprised, at the second message of the blast:

 _The NYPD is in hot pursuit, but no one ever called us ineffectual. All good Upper East Siders love to talk business, and I'm prepared to sweeten the deal._

 _So I'll cut to the chase and lay my cards on the table._

She reads them over and over. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God." Her gaze turns inward. Her eyes flutter closed for a minute, and then she snaps her phone open and her fingers descend on the buttons like gunfire.

"Do you think Blair's seen it?" Erik's gaze flicks from her face to the phone in her hands.

"I hope not," she murmurs.

She stops and looks up.

"Where's Mom?"

"Meeting with the designer. With Bart." Erik shifts, glances through the open door behind him just in case he's wrong, but there's no Lily Van der Woodsen in the living room.

Serena snaps her phone shut and drops it, tossing the covers from her legs and maneuvering herself off the bed. She starts looking through her closet and yanks first at this dress, then that, shoving them to the other side of the open space in her closet so hard that some slip off the hangers. Erik watches, silent, and eyes her phone, wondering if he can slide it open and see who she just texted.

Because he's pretty sure it wasn't Blair.

iv.

 _8:03 AM_

He's wolfing down his second egg sandwich, slick with sweat from his early morning sun, standing in the kitchen and trying to keep all his crumbs on the napkin underneath him. He sees no need to dirty a plate every single time he eats, now that they no longer have daily maid service.

His chewing slows when he hears the chiming he's accustomed to rolling his eyes at. Gossip Girl has, admittedly, commanded more of his attention with some of her recent posts.

Still, his sandwich with spinach, tomato and hot sauce on lean turkey is first priority. He takes another mouthful, second to last, and then hears his phone prattle again in his pocket.

He frowns, fishing it out. Swallows. Puts the last bite, too big- it really should be two- in his mouth at once to free his hands.

Keys his passcode in and opens it, just as it sounds off a third time, insisting on his attention.

He finishes all three messages before he realizes he's stopped chewing.

He runs a hand over his sweaty hair, pushing it back, sweat turning cold now that his exertion is thirty minutes old, and flips back to the last message, reading it over and over.

 _If a Gossip Girl reader turns the man who raped Blair Waldorf into the police, I'll reveal my identity via live stream at the stroke of midnight the following evening._

 _All hands on deck to avenge Her Majesty._

 _XOXO._

v.

 _9:12 AM_

Jenny rips her phone from the charger cable and rolls onto her side, looking down for Dan, but he's gone. Pillow and quilt are left in a mess by her bedside.

She powers the phone on, bare feet picking carefully over the quilt, and puts it in her pocket.

He's in the living room, mug of black coffee in hand, in sweats and a white t-shirt. There's an open book on his knee, which is hiked up, foot pressed casually on the corner of the coffee table, which tells her they're the only ones who are home, or he wouldn't want to be caught like that.

"More coffee?" she asks sleepily, rubbing at her eyes.

"Yup, still hot," he throws over his shoulder, casual, routine, his foot nudging his laptop further away. "Dad got fresh orange juice, too; if you have some, I'll take a glass."

She gives him a sleepy smirk, to which he replies with a winning brotherly smile.

"Anything else you need while I'm up? Souffle? Breakfast quiche? Roast leg of lamb?"

"Some toast would be _great_ ," he indulges.

"You'll take your juice and you'll like it." She yanks the refrigerator door open and sets up two glasses.

His eyes track back to his book, and his temple flexes, but she doesn't see. "I mean, I _did_ make the coffee…"

She rolls her eyes and chuckles. "When I'm hungry, you can have toast." This is their routine: whichever of them gets hungry first feeds the other. Usually it's on weekends only, though, and today is Day Three of no school, and therefore Day Three of Food Stakeout-

Her phone chirps suddenly, finally awake and catching up itself, and she freezes.

Dan's eyes stay on his book.

Then twice more, the notification noises almost sounding on top of one another.

Blinking rapidly, she puts down the orange juice and digs out her phone, flips it open without a sound.

Dan's still reading.

He's so engrossed in his book that he doesn't notice when Jenny is silent for a full minute. Doesn't ask where his orange juice is, or wheedle her about toast again.

Doesn't even look up as she lifts her head and stares, openmouthed, at him.

"Did you see the Gossip Girl blast?" she finally asks.

"Hmm?"

Great book. Fantastic book. Can't tear his eyes away.

Never mind that he's never had a particular affinity for Edgar Allen Poe before.

"Where's your phone?" she tries again, at a whisper.

Suddenly, _The Telltale Heart_ is all he can think about.

Casual flick of a finger. "By my bed." His eyes swivel up now, lazily, deliberately avoiding the laptop that's a few inches from his foot, appropriately misaligned with the edges of the coffee table, since it was placed there without a second thought after completing some totally innocuous online activity earlier this morning.

She comes around the counter to hand him her phone. He blinks up at her before he takes it.

"Why? What does it say?"

vi.

 _9:26 AM_

Serena pulls on lounge pants over the shorts she slept in and yanks a sweater over her head, stuffing the two winning dresses- both nighttime, going-out dresses, and completely unseasonable- in the first duffel bag she finds. She curses under her breath and turns to look at the racks of shoes she so meticulously rearranged not twelve hours before. Erik watches her with a mounting sense of quiet dread.

She's run away before.

Where is she running now?

"What are you doing?" he asks, finally, when she looks around and jams her feet into the loafers that overlap in the corner, stowing away behind her door and missing last night's organization spree.

She grabs her phone and shrugs into her peacoat.

"Going out." She doesn't meet his eyes. Starts to move around the foot of the bed.

Panic spikes in him.

"Where?"

He jumps down to follow her.

"Don't tell Mom until she gets back."

"Where are you going?"

She stops and turns back to him. "Stay here, okay? Promise?"

He splutters, incredulous. "No, I don't _promise_. What's wrong with you? Where the hell are you going?"

"I have to go out."

They stare at each other, long lithe Van der Woodsen stubbornness standing off.

"Please tell me you're going to see Blair."

She licks her lips slowly, cheek quirking as her tongue pushes against it, evaluative. "I'm going to see Blair."

His cheeks quirk up, angry, knowing. "Liar."

She shrugs, eyes flat, and it's a version of her he knows, a version that has struggled up and taken control periodically for the last few years, a version that ran away from him and all of them and only came back for him, because he almost died. Tried to die- and if she leaves him again he will see to it that he succeeds this time.

"I aim to please," she says by way of explanation and excuse, and turns away from him again.

He's hot on her heels, trying to yank at anything- her coat, her elbow, the strap of her bag- he bats the phone out of her hand and they both go after it; she gets it first and wrenches their front door open.

"I'm calling security," he cries out after her, shaky.

Just as he reaches for the receiver of the landline that's nestled in the corner of the kitchen counter, it rings.

vii.

She pushes the elevator buttons frantically, hoping there's a diversion in the lobby and she'll get out before Erik somehow convinces security to stop her. As Bart Bass's future stepdaughter, she's an asset that needs to be protected, and she's not exactly inconspicuous looking.

Her phone buzzes in her hand, and she opens it, straight to the screen where she left it.

Outgoing text message.

To: Nate Archibald.

 _I need you._

She clicks open his reply.

 _You ok? You see it?_

She sighs, striking the elevator buttons again, vaguely irritated because they're not lighting up.

 _Yes. Meet around the corner from the lobby, on Madison?_

She resettles the dresses in the bag. She'll freeze to death if she wears these outside, coat or no. She doesn't have stockings. She pauses and shifts the contents of the bag to put the heels underneath, so they're not protruding. Carrying an ambiguous garment in a bag is much less suspicious, she's learned over the years, than toting around a change of shoes. Especially come-fuck-me heels.

Nate: _Great minds. I'm two blocks away._

Then: _Can't get ahold of Chuck. You want to get him?_

She strikes the buttons again; they're still not lighting up.

She doesn't have time for this. She'll take the stairs, she decides, and spins on her heel, dashing off a reply and pocketing her phone again.

 _We don't need him._

She turns back into her own hallway, heading the opposite way from her suite, toward the stairwell. A door clicks open behind her.

"Serena."

The tightness that is totally foreign in Erik's voice stops her. Almost unwillingly, she turns. They're ten paces apart.

"The elevator's not going to take you downstairs," he says, quiet. She sees that he's holding his own phone now.

"I'll take the stairwell," she says sharply, but even as her foot lifts to take a step, the lights in the hallway flicker and die. It's just the two Van der Woodsens in a dim corridor, half-lit by the pale January light.

Erik lifts the phone to his ear. "I've got her. We're going to the penthouse elevator now. Can you send it down, please?"

He snaps the phone shut.

"Stairwells are sealed off."

She rolls her eyes. "I didn't realize Bart loved me so much," she mocks.

"The building is being locked down." He stares at her. "They're sending down the penthouse elevator and we have to get into it in the next sixty seconds before they deactivate all the badges and go to generator power."

He steps toward her; she steps back, hand on her strap.

"I'm going out," she repeats, slow, desperate.

"We're not safe here," he levels, low and final, trying to make her understand without saying it. When she still hesitates: "Serena. Now. Upstairs."

She grips the gilded railing in the penthouse elevator all the way up.

viii.

 _9:36 AM_

He wakes like someone jarred him physically, though of course no one is there.

The first thing that registers, even before he opens his eyes to the white-gold of a January midmorning in Manhattan, is silence.

True silence. Not companionable silence, not pensive silence, not even solitary silence. Just silence.

Silence is an elusive state, even an elusive concept, in Manhattan. Most New Yorkers don't understand the term, though they all think they do. There's almost always noise in New York City. The beeping of a truck backing up to a loading dock; the hum and guffaw of foot traffic; the low drone of planes gaining altitude over the island as they take off from Newark and White Plains and LaGuardia and JFK; the exclamation points of honking horns and the long question marks of a train howling in the distance. (The Metro Transit Authority could really afford to be more creative with their whistle sounds.)

This, though, is true silence, and he shakes himself awake, wild-eyed and stiff from the labor of nightmaring, trying to snap his senses back to normal.

It's then he realizes it: the electricity is out. The Palace is nothing more than a shell, steel beams and concrete planes. He can almost feel the building sway in place, as all steel structures must; there's a necessary flexibility in metal, his father explained to him once when he was a little boy, watching a new Bass skyscraper go up. _You don't see it until you know it's there,_ Bart said then, gaze lifted at the top of the growing structure, his pride and joy, while his son's gaze was lifted to look at him. _Once you see it for the first time, though, you'll see it for the rest of your life._

And he doesn't just see it, now, he feels it. He swears he does.

As he gets to his feet, the electricity clicks back on with an indecipherable, almost inaudible whir, that, again, one would never hear if one hadn't experienced the silence that preceded it.

He finds the pants and shirt he discarded last night and tugs them on, looking outside. A blizzard taking out The Palace and forcing it to generator power is unlikely, but not inconceivable. But it's not snowing.

He picks up his phone, turns the ringer back on, heart dropping when he sees a handful of missed calls- Blair, Nate, Tyler, his father, Front Desk (just a few minutes ago)- and a slew of missed texts- same group, minus Front Desk.

And three updates from Gossip Girl.

He steps into the shoes he pried off last night and reaches for his coat, draping it over his arm.

Stops when the door to his suite won't budge for him.

He stares at it, then tries again. The handle turns, but the door won't move. Although he knows it's not, he checks the chain, the deadbolt.

Braces his foot against the wall.

His heart starts to pound, because…

He reaches for his landline, flipping open the texts with the other hand-

Nate: _You see the blast?_

 _Any ideas?_

 _You awake?_

 _I'm coming over._

 _What's going on?_

Blair: _Looks like the sniper army just grew to include the whole GG readership._

 _Note to self: taking down GG is next order of business._

 _Are you in your suite?_

 _Are you okay?_

 _CALL ME ASAP._

Tyler: _Call me. News._

 _If you're awake, get out of The Palace ASAP._

 _If you haven't gotten out yet, stay where you are._

 _Please confirm your location._

Bart: _Under no circumstances are you to get involved. Understood?_

 _Charles, answer me._

 _Son, tell me where you are._

Kathryn picks up, a rush of breath in his ear: "Chuck, thank God."

He frowns. What is she doing here? It's nearly 9:45. She's normally gone by nine in the morning, latest.

"Good morning," he manages, clearing the sleep and confusion from his throat, scrolling through the texts again. "Can you send someone from maintenance up, please?"

She pauses. "Someone is already on their way, but the elevators are moving really slowly-"

"To fix the door?"

"What?"

He blinks, mind shuffling as slowly, apparently, as the elevator. "My door won't open. Did we have a power outage?"

There's a long pause and he feels his spine prickling with unease. "No… we're on lockdown."

"Why?"

"Have you looked outside?"

Well, yes. He clears his throat again and shuffles across the room, drawing back the curtain. "I'm looking now. It's not snowing," he offers, still sleepy.

"Look down."

And he does, discomfort starting to burn in him.

NYPD cars swarm on the street in front of the building, the otherwise-empty street; it's blockaded. And between them, officers themselves, dark ants that scurry back and forth.

 _Are you in your suite?_

 _Please confirm your location._

 _Son, tell me where you are._

"I tried calling you…" she murmurs in his ear. "But we couldn't wait any longer."

"I was sleeping. My phones were on silent," he says back, absently, eyes trailing the detectives below.

"I needed to make sure you were safe." And for the first time, he hears the relief in her voice. "But we had to comply with the police- and we're running on limited systems power now to control the security system, and I need to have someone escort you up to the penthouse; he's on his way, but…" There's frantic typing and shuffling of paper in the background.

"What…"

He swallows down the hot acid that's in his throat. "What the fuck is going on?"

But he already knows.

She takes a breath, then another.

Then, without preamble: "They found him."

His heart slows, foggy, and he feels like he's going to be physically sick. He looks out the window again, and sees, in the distance but about to make a pass closer to his side of the building, two helicopters- news and NYPD- hovering, silent, like dragonflies.

It occurs to him then that this is all happening _here_ , very close to his window.

"Where…?"

It's all he can manage; his mouth is dry. He's seeing spots. He screws his eyes shut.

She starts to answer but stops.

"Kathryn," he grinds into the phone, "what room is he in?"

"I c… you need to get out of your suite," she replies weakly.

His chest tightens. "What room?"

He hears a gulp and a quick bite of static as she wraps her hand around the mouthpiece, and then says, soft yet magnified, in his ear: "1712."

He forgets how to breathe.

She's rushing on- "So we need to get you out of there, right now, okay, because…"

1712\. He looks down at the plush carpet beneath his feet. He's just a few feet from the guy. He's been dreaming about killing him the last few hours- well, the last week, if he's being truthful- and he assured Blair on the phone last night, and-

His heart sinks even further.

"How long has he been here?" He barely manages the horrified whisper, cutting off her nervous rambling.

The fifteenth through twenty-first floors are suites. Extended stays. Executives and the like.

"I don't know."

"Longer than a night?"

She shifts her hand on the mouthpiece and the friction hurts his ear. "Much longer."

He makes his way to the bar, leans on it, even as he white-knuckles his cell phone in his other hand. While he made sours the other night and he and Serena shot nasty comments at each other; while he pounded the wall until his knuckles were bloody.

With Nate, and Serena, and the Humphreys, as they plotted to counteract the tabloid sensation- Jenny was up here all alone. With the guy one floor down. For hours.

Walking Serena home the other night.

 _We could use me as bait._

 _I'm surprised how nervous I am…_

 _If you tell anyone, I'll kill you._

… _knowing he's here._

Never _will he come near you again._

 _I can't even shut my eyes long enough to fall asleep…_

 _Did you care about her?_

 _Can you just make it go away?_

 _Would you agree to that, if it were Lily?_

 _I've never seen someone in so much agony as she was._

He's silent, unable to even open his mouth as adrenaline explodes in him. He storms back to the door and starts yanking on it violently, pounding a fist against it in frustration when it won't yield. "Open my door."

"As soon as your escort gets there. I'm- I'm not to let you out of your room or anywhere else without an escort."

His nostrils flare. "Directives from my father?"

"Yes. And a detective at the NYPD. I didn't catch his name."

Kathryn is extremely observant. She knows very well who Tyler is, and is probably under no illusions about his identity.

But she's also extremely dutiful, which is why his father loves her.

"Just open it," he says, calming his voice with effort. It still comes out too gruff. "Where are the Van der Woodsens?"

"Ms. Van der Woodsen is out with your father. Serena and Erik just got up to the penthouse."

He lets go of the door, mind clicking.

"As you might be aware, Erik has been dealing with some emotional stability issues," he intones smoothly, sympathetically.

Like she wasn't the one to guide the ambulance into the service bay when Erik was found bleeding in his bed, discreetly holding her master key badge in front of the sensor to keep the freight elevator door open and averting her eyes while the stretcher maneuvered tentatively inside, stepping around a crying Lily to give them privacy on the way down.

"I'm concerned about Serena managing the stress of this situation and making sure he's okay. You may be aware that she's very close with Blair Waldorf. She's not in the best condition herself."

The number of times Blair has walked through the lobby of The Palace during Kathryn's shift has to be in the triple digits by now. (Not all of those were visits with Serena, but Kathryn doesn't need to know that.)

Another thought occurs to him then: surely, surely the guy was not beneath them when she slipped on his gray sweater, pressing herself against him, _I'm cold_ , not when he woke, happy, half-conscious, and out of his mouth tumbled, _Come here…_

Not then. Surely the guy was not beneath them all the way back _then._

Kathryn pauses. "If you can just wait for a few minutes…"

"I'll wait as long as you want," he agrees, amenable. "I'd just hate to think of Erik as good as alone up there, possibly having a panic attack. Possibly a danger to himself or his sister. Possibly…"

He lets it linger.

"Your father…"

"I'm sure my father hasn't considered the possible consequences of leaving Erik alone in his condition, given all he must be trying to manage at the moment," he reasons, dipping his words in just the right amount of concern and uncertainty, not too sugary, not too hot.

She falters, but she's stopped typing, and the only sound in the background is of footsteps and quick, hushed verbal exchanges.

Right where he wants her.

She knows, everyone knows, about his mother, dying behind glass operating room windows, while a younger and warmer Bart held his newborn son and watched her go. Helpless.

Jugular.

He lowers his eyes. Force of habit.

"Please unlock my door," he murmurs, playing up and down the scales, and delivers the words, letting them crack in just the right place: "so I can get to my family before anything happens to them."

She sighs. He can almost see her brush her hair back from her face, behind the simple diamond studs she always wears.

"Just for five seconds," she mutters unwillingly into the phone. "The penthouse elevator is running at normal speed; I'm sending it now. But I can't open your door for more than a few seconds or I'll have to open them all."

 _I don't know about you, but I plan on killing the guy._

The door clicks, softly, and he opens it. The hallway is empty. Only a skeleton-key badge can open any door in The Palace, and only a master badge can open any door when the hotel is running on a generator or on security lockdown.

And there are only four master badges in existence.

 _Serena's arms clasped around him in the hospital lounge, cheeks wet, eyes clouded with nerves and tears: You're not serious._

The penthouse elevator is waiting for him.

Watching his reflection in the polished brass wall, he reenacts the way he turned his smirk into a smile to reassure her. _Of course not._

ix.

Nate calls while he's in the elevator. His mind spins, trying to find a clever opening line, but it falls flat. "Yes?" he manages, after a moment of silence.

"I'm outside. A block away. I don't- Jesus Christ."

"Blockades up?"

He watches his face in the brass.

"Yeah, I…" Nate pauses and speaks closer to the phone. "Any chance I can get in there?"

He stifles a snort. "If you can talk the NYPD into admitting you, be my guest. The bar might not be open, though."

There's a deadly pause that is uncharacteristic of Nate. His eyes lower, a sideways glance at the phone he holds to his own face, brushing his jawline.

"I saw what he did to her leg."

He licks his lips, at a loss again. "I see."

"I'd really like to break a few of _his_ bones," Nate says, offhand, thoughtful. Like he's saying, _we should really make reservations if we're going at seven._

A fond smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

Nate the Hero.

'Break a few of his bones.'

How… _wholesome_.

"I don't think I can get you in," he drawls, apologetic. "My father even has _me_ restricted."

"Where's Serena?"

"Safe in the penthouse. Erik, too." _In case you were wondering._ "It's fully secure; basically a big panic room. I'm on my way there now."

But she's going to be staying there, and he is not.

"You sure…" Nate sniffs; it's freezing outside. "No way I can sneak in? Freight entrance? Staff door?" He chuckles, strangled. "Trash chute?"

"Best if you stay out of it, Nathaniel. The situation is being handled. I'm about to lose signal; I'll call you later." Nate starts to protest, but he cuts him off: "Go home."

There's full signal in the penthouse elevator, but he's done with Nate the Hero. They don't need a white knight.

x.

She clutches her phone tighter in her good hand, other hand wrapped carefully around her father, mother standing behind her, mechanically stroking her hair.

"This can't be real," she says again. She hasn't shed a single tear. Not when she got the blast, not when Dorota burst in and all but pulled her from bed, supporting her as they made their way downstairs.

Not when… there he was.

"She doesn't need to see this," Eleanor said then, one hand curving against her own waist, other palm resting incredulously on the top of her own head.

The shot was far away, a long-range news camera, breathless female anchor prattling on about the NYPD's search having intensified overnight as they narrowed in on additional tips, the possible areas where the suspect might be located dwindling, until- at last, at last- an employee at none other than Midtown's Palace Hotel alerted police to an extended-stay guest who had ordered room service around four in the morning. Who looked, even in the absent silence with which he accepted the tray, familiar.

"Of course she does." Harold was quick, silent, reaching an arm for his daughter without tearing his gaze of barely contained fury from the television screen.

xi.

Black coffee long forgotten, orange juices warming to room temperature, Jenny is curled up on the sofa next to Dan, arms clasped around her knees. Dan is leaning forward, elbows on knees, like he's going to reach out and touch the guy.

The female anchor's voice announces that the NYPD have secured and closed off a block-wide radius around The Palace before locking down the building, and are now establishing contact with the suspect, who, it has been confirmed through a review of the hotel's badge system, hasn't left his room in several days.

"How can this be?" Jenny murmurs to herself. "All this time, he's been right… there?"

Dan lifts the hand closest to her, without looking, and bends it back, palm up. She untangles her arms, without looking, and lays her palm against his.

xii.

"This is ridiculous."

Bart's jaw is clenching as he grips the soft leather of the chair in front of him as though it's the furniture's fault that the NYPD won't let him into his hotel.

Lily is silent beside him, clutching her small purse in one hand, bakery box of sweets for the Waldorfs wistful on the conference table before them.

They're two blocks from The Palace, in the closest building to it that Bart owns, where he hustled her, insisting she double over and covering her back with his own body, arms wrapped around her shoulders as they shuffled the ten feet from limo to revolving door.

The room is dark, the motion-activated lights having flickered to life and then died when its inhabitants stayed stock-still for more than five minutes, and neither of them moves to turn them back on.

Lily swallows, listening to the anchor prattle on, the lens pointing through the suspect's window retracting and zooming back in.

"You put out word to everyone to be on their guard…" she murmurs. "You distributed all the photos you could get your hands on."

 _It's not your fault._

"I should have had them comb all our security footage."

His voice is quiet, grievous.

She turns her head then, and the motion-activated lights stutter on. He looks back at her.

"That's a Herculean task. It's not your job to track down criminals that might or might not even be in the city."

"In _my_ hotel," he bites out. "Ten feet under the suite where _my_ child lives."

Kathryn emailed them a few minutes before that she'd finally gotten ahold of Chuck and he was en route to the penthouse- that he'd gone willingly; asked to go- he was in the elevator, and the badge system successfully deactivated.

The anchor's voice dies in the middle of her sentence; she asks her audience to wait a moment, please, she's getting an update from the operation on the ground-

"Right under my nose," Bart murmurs, turning back to the television screen.

Yes- yes, she's just received confirmation that the NYPD has made contact with the suspect.

xiii.

Serena's sitting with her knees together, feet apart, in pajamas and peacoat with her duffel on the floor between her ankles as though her plan might still somehow work.

Bart's media room has numerous types of screens, most of which are hooked up to various surveillance footage systems and computer mainframes, controlled by a large flat control with color-coded buttons that the Van der Woodsens have no hope of understanding.

Thank God there's a normal big-screen television with a friendly-looking remote in the middle of one wall.

Erik's back is against her side, shoulder to shoulder, his legs stretched under his robe.

There's nothing new to report, so for now they're just watching the somewhat blotchy chopper feed from the news helicopter which, in a dark twist of irony, is flying up and down their very block, visible through the wall of windows at their backs.

"What were you going to do?" Erik says, finally.

Serena's arm doesn't stiffen; her breath doesn't catch.

She tilts and rests her ear against the back of his head, turning, nuzzling her cheek affectionately into his hair.

"Stop him."

He glances at the duffel.

"How, exactly?"

"I don't know," she whispers, lost. "But I had to try."

The anchor announces, choppily, and then repeats it because her audio feed is peppered with static: The NYPD's first order of business is to make sure the suspect has no one in the room with him who might be in danger, and that the rest of The Palace's guests are secure.

Erik reaches behind him, lifting his eyes back to the chopper feed. The guy, no more than a dark shape as he passes unknowingly through the camera's path of vision, is pacing, like an aggravated teenager arguing on the phone with strict parents.

Touches his sister's hair. "The only thing you need to do is not leave me."

Serena's head twitches up then, missing the raw moisture in her brother's words. "Did you hear that?"

xiv.

God, Chuck loves his father. He can't imagine loving another human being more than he loves his father.

If the man were here right now, he'd grab his face in between firm palms and kiss both cheeks.

He'd say, _I love you for hating the noise of elevator chimes._

Stepping off the penthouse elevator, no Van der Woodsens in sight, just the dull drone of what he knows is the big-screen ensconced in the west wall of his father's media room. Stepsiblings ensconced before it, probably huddled together on the couch like a litter of puppies, if he knows anything about how they operate.

Through the foyer and up the stairs with no ding to announce his arrival; none the wiser.

Next he'd say, _I love you for being obsessed with my mother._

Because his father never, never, not even when he knew his wayward son guessed correctly the combination to the safe, changed the passcode. All these years, no sequence of numbers could come to Bart Bass as quickly as those of his wife's birthday.

Maybe it's not too wishful to think he might have deliberately left his son with the ability to access what was inside, in case of an emergency. Trusted him, perhaps?

For an emergency just like this.

He shoves his hand into his left pocket, making sure there are no gloves or anything else that will take up room.

Then he'd say, _I love you because you're always one step ahead._

There it is, waiting patiently.

And he's pretty sure (he knows his father, knows he wouldn't want to waste time if it were him in this position- _if it were Lily_ ), but checks anyway, because that would be most unfortunate-

Yes, it's already loaded.

Then he'd say, _I love you for being a control freak._

Because The Palace is a fortress, really. In addition to the badges, there's a systemic security system that can be activated at any time from two boxes on every floor, from whose keypads the lights, sprinkler system, generator power and badge system can be manipulated.

These boxes are accessible via a 17-digit code that's changed every ten and a half hours, and presented to Bart on an index card, typed on an old-fashioned typewriter (in reverse order, for good measure) in a small sealed envelope that he keeps in his inside breast pocket.

It's all most elaborate, Bass-level attention to detail in every step of the procedure, layered intricacy like pairing a silk paisley ascot with a checked shirt under a pinstriped dinner jacket.

It's precisely why there are only four master key cards in existence: one is on Bart's person at all times, or within arm's reach; two are attached, with equal strictness, to the day and night managers of The Palace- Kathryn at night, and Xavier during the day.

The fourth is in the unassuming brown leather pouch, probably meant as a business card holder, that is- mercifully, yes, _yes_ \- still exactly where it ought to be.

At the back of the bottom drawer in the safe underneath Bart's passport and a memory card holding the passcodes to the hotel's surveillance mainframes, in case there should be any glitch on the various monitors in the media room in the floor below.

He took a gamble getting Kathryn to let him up here. There was no guarantee the master card would be here. He's not seen it, not looked for it, in years. But he banked on his father's neurotic thoroughness- one spare master key card, in case of, God forbid, anything- and that the man left it here, for him, in his moment of need, warms him with love.

He leaves the pouch empty on the top of the drawer's contents and pockets the revolver.

He's in such a hurry coming back down the stairs that he forgets to tiptoe, and Serena, who from the looks of it was heading away from the living room and back toward the media room, turns.

"Oh, thank God you're here," she heaves, hand coming to her heart. "Have you seen the feed-?"

He smiles, that smile he practiced, reassuring, _you're not serious- of course not._

She doesn't move immediately, and when she realizes he's going for the elevator, it's too late.

"Chuck? _Chuck_!" Her voice sharpens as she starts to follow him, but the naked master key card is in his hand, and he double-taps it and it overrides the security system.

The elevator doors open with a soft whir.

"What are you doing?" She's coming after him now. He hears her footsteps check as he presses 17. He can almost see her glancing up the stairs to where he's just come from, wondering what on earth he was getting up there.

And how he got the elevator door to open.

"Chuck, what are you-"

And he'd say to his father: _I love you for loathing indecision._

Serena lurches after him, coming into view now, and he double-taps the card again and the doors slide closed, and her blue eyes trace down from his smiling face to the coat he's wearing, inexplicably, indoors, to the hand that's still poised at the badge sensor, and then across, to the hand that's in his pocket, sort of, but not really, his fist enlarged and held oddly halfway out-

And she lunges forward like she can get between the doors, stop them, stop him, voice hurtling to a shriek-

" _Chuck!"_

And the doors slide closed, and it's silent, and he lets the smile go and leans his head back, and thinks he'd say to his father, _I love you for being my father, because I am nothing if not your son._

xv.

He can't stop inserting the guy into every, single, solitary moment of peace he's had in The Palace.

Licking his lips, tracing Serena's bare legs as she leant her head on Chuck's shoulder at the bar last Saturday.

Studying the elegant lines of Lily's face as she wiped tears quietly over her glass of white on Monday night, right before Chuck got there.

Eyes roving over the demure sweep of Blair's cloche hat above her camel coat as she breezed through the lobby that early morning in December- no, he couldn't have been there then, he _couldn't_ have- on her way up to his room, surprising him with a clang of the doorbell as he finished rinsing his toothbrush, a tortured groan in his throat when he put his hands up her navy skirt and found nothing- _well,_ she murmured in his ear, his mouth on her neck, _I would be wearing them, but in a cruel tragedy, they went missing yesterday-_ and he straightened in mock horror: _oh, that's terrible. Are you doing all right?_

No, he couldn't have been below them then, as they kissed their way toward his bed, Manhattan sky a cozy, promising indigo in the depths of Daylight Savings Time.

 _Bearing up_. She attempted to keep her voice even while he went back to kissing her neck. _Some pervert made off with them._

 _I'm sure he's just misunderstood,_ he chuckled, easing her onto her back and standing between her feet. _Maybe he's some kind of alternative artist._

She squirmed, then, still in her coat, cheeks flushing, and hiked her legs up his back, then even further, feet draped over his shoulders- _I_ have _been called a work of art,_ she professed with a bright-eyed smirk that he returned, turning to kiss the insides of her ankles.

No, not then.

Not while they timed it because she had to meet Serena in eighteen minutes and they decided they could have sex twice without making her late.

Not while she threw him a condom as he went to pull away and find one, and he told her he was impressed, and she said, _I only have one_ , and he smirked, rolling it on, yanking his shirt over his head with one hand, and said, _no worries- I'm Chuck Bass._

The guy didn't exist then.

xvi.

He answers her call against his will. He's already ignored Serena's call twice.

"Are you seeing this?" It's almost not even words; it's barely more than a squeak.

"Yes," he lies easily. "You okay?"

"No," she bursts, angry. "He's- where are you? Are you in your room?"

"No," he tells her. "I'm safe. Don't worry about that."

His thumb strokes the trigger.

"Are you away from him?"

 _Sliding toward him as we speak._

"Yes. Upstairs." It's not quite a lie.

Her voice drops an octave. "They'll get him, right? They're- they're talking to him, but he's not cooperating and the reporter said he wasn't talking back anymore…"

"Definitely. Breathe," he counsels her, watching the pale yellow skip from circle to circle, a child hopping down stairs, illuminating where he is as the elevator glides to the seventeenth floor.

"He's alone in there," she murmurs, soft, like it was a real fear of hers that someone else was in the room with him. "He's not hurting anyone else. He won't." She's resolute.

 _I need to die. Can you help me with that?_

So is he. "He won't."

No. He won't. (God, he loves his father.)

"I just want him to surrender, I just want…" She trails off and he pictures her, blinking as she takes it in, licking her lips.

He's not sure, when he asks himself later, whether he simply forgot, or whether he reasoned in some back corner of his mind that the elevator chimes on the lower floors would be turned off since they were running on generator power. But either way, the elevator creeps past the eighteenth floor- he gives a nod of solidarity to his suite- and settles on the seventeenth, and with a cheerful _ding_ , the doors slide open.

"What was that?"

He can't see the way she pulls away from her father fully then.

He swallows and parts his lips. The doors will remain open as long as he needs; without a double-tap, or a remote summons from Kathryn, the elevator won't move. He stands rooted.

"Chuck? Where are you? Was that the elevator?"

"No," he lies, again, stepping forward gingerly like she might hear the sound of his trousers whispering as he moves.

"Like I don't know the sound of the elevators at The Palace," she retorts. "Oh, my God. Please tell me where you are?" She runs out of breath at the end.

"I'm… in the elevator," he replies. "I have to go, I'm going to lose service…"

He shuts his eyes as her protest pierces him.

" _Chuck_!"

He's really much fonder of hearing that floating up from underneath him, if he's being honest.

He steps off the elevator. "I told you I was helping."

She begins to pant now. "Not like this," she insists, and he can tell she's moving by the way her voice tightens- she's walking away from her staring parents across the room, though he can't see that. "Not like… what are you doing? You can't…"

"I was told room service won't bring me breakfast until this nonsense is over," he tries. "And I'm dying for a crab cake Benedict."

She completely ignores his attempt. "You don't-" Her voice breaks. She's starting to cry. "Please, you don't know what he's capable of. I – I do."

Maybe not, but he knows what he's capable of.

 _Rode hard and put away wet._

"I'll call you back," he promises at a whisper.

"No- _no -_ they're negotiating with him." She's slipping into desperation now; he can hear her gulp for air, a slight twitch of vocal behind it, and knows she's hurting her rib by breathing too heavily.

"It'll be fine. It will be fine." He really should just close his phone.

"No…"

Her whimper dies with a suddenness, like someone cut off the line; but he hears an exclamation of a syllable from Eleanor in the background.

"Chuck." She grinds into the receiver through tears he knows are flowing now; can hear them. "Chuck, he…"

She gasps.

He can't see her, can't see how she's backing herself against a wall, sliding down until she meets the floor, holding up a hand to keep her parents from coming too close.

How her face crumples, for an instant, before she forces her eyes open.

It dies in her throat, but then she forces it out. "He has a _gun_ , Chuck, he…"

He can't see how the guy brandishes it, pointing it right at the camera that he must know is there now; how the anchor goes silent for a few seconds, how the lens moves, how the barrel of the gun follows it.

He can't see how she covers her eyes, curling further into herself, tears dampening the neck of her sweater.

"He has a gun…"

He clenches his left fist tighter, stroking it like a lover.

He doesn't think enough before he brings the phone in front of his face, elevator doors still gaping open behind him, and puts against it and murmurs in her ear, hot and low, like he's done so many times- the name of the NYU frat guy Penelope blew at last week's rush party; what time he'll be over to scheme; _BlairBlairBlair_.

Somehow this feels as intimate as anything else: " _I_ have a gun."

It's like he pulled a lung out of her chest and other one has to work double time. She's gasping, and he's made her gasp like this before, and he knows her lips are getting cold.

"You have to get away from there," she manages, close to the receiver too. "Please…this isn't the plan…"

"This was always the plan, one way or the other. But I have to improvise because I gave the sniper army the day off." The teasing is ill-timed and he knows it, but his bandwidth for negotiating is low at the moment.

She flares. "We _have_ the sniper army. They're called the NYPD."

"Waldorf, I have to go." He squeezes the badge and finally takes a step, out of the elevator alcove.

"Chuck, please…" She sucks breath loudly through her lips. "Please…"

"I'll call you back," he tells her again. "I promise."

And he still can't hang up on her, so he drops the phone on the tufted velvet bench in the hallway.

xvii.

The always-choppy feed jerked and cut out at one point, and when it came back on the audio lagged the video by a second and a half.

And so it is that they see what happens before they hear the gun shot. Just one- muffled but satisfying.

In Brooklyn, Jenny jerks, burying her head in Dan's shoulder from where she peeked out a few seconds before. "Dan," she shrieks, panic spiking in her.

"It's okay," he manages, staring at the screen. It's not okay. "It's over." He clutches her head with both hands, presses his lips to the top of it.

In the penthouse of The Palace, two blonde Van der Woodsens were already straining backward on the sofa as though to put as much distance between themselves and it as possible.

"Oh, God." Erik grabs at Serena's elbow; her hand comes up to cover his.

"Come here," she murmurs, and opens her arms.

In the conference room of the Bass-owned office two blocks away, Lily jolts back and Bart reaches for her, drawing her close, hand on the back of her head curling her against him and turning her so she faces the screen over his shoulder, which could look odd if one were to think he was trying to force her to look at it. But really he's putting himself between death- in whatever form- and the woman he loves.

In the Waldorf penthouse, Eleanor, Harold and Dorota are all focused on Blair, curled as she is, spine smarting against the wall. She's the only one who sees. Her lips part, wordless, and they all turn at the sound of the gun shot.

"Oh, my God," Eleanor mutters, reaching for her hair. Harold reaches for the remote.

Dorota reaches for Blair. "Miss Blair, is not good for ribs-"

"Don't _touch_ me," she grinds, breathless with pain.

And on the seventeenth floor, he quivers, ten feet from those four magic numbers, weapons ready in both hands, as the shot echoes around him.

xviii.

Blair must have ended the call, because his phone is disconnected.

It's lighting up as he approaches, though- Serena again; her call illuminates texts, also from her; another flashes up from Nate. He lets Serena go, snatching up his phone and sending her to voicemail.

The penthouse elevator is waiting for him.

He steps in and dials, double-tapping and pressing PH.

She answers without a word, breath hard and fast and ragged in his ear, and he imagines easing her to horizontal, climbing on top of her and bringing her back to earth by pressing his lips over hers, letting their noses touch. He thinks that would make her feel better. Wants to offer.

Instead what comes out is: "See? Much ado about nothing." Glib, dry, like when she makes too big a deal about the dressing on her salad being mixed in instead of on the side.

She doesn't respond, just gasps unevenly. She tries to take a deep breath, but it cuts off in the middle and she begins coughing, dry and with whimpering peppered between.

"Blair?"

He looks around, uneasy at the sound of her struggling to draw breath to choke back out.

"I c…"

The coughing subsides, but she doesn't catch her breath.

Finally, she manages: "Safe?"

"Yes," he replies at once, not caring if she means her or him.

"I…"

But she can't get the words out. This isn't coughing now. His heart beats harder and fiercer for her than it has been with adrenaline all this time.

"Breathe," he tries again, hearing the rising voices of the Waldorfs and Dorota in the background.

"C… can you come over?"

"I- we're locked down, still- after?"

She tries to slow her gasping, but only succeeds for a few breaths. "As soon as you can?"

"Yes." He nods, watching the numbers skip back up the staircase.

He doesn't see how she flushes, lips darkening (or cheeks paling?) as Dorota moves in without waiting for permission this time, Harold on her other side and Eleanor grabbing for a pillow to brace against her daughter's broken ribs as they were told to do.

"Promise," she mutters under her breath.

"Promise."

She hangs up as she's gingerly lifted to standing, three adults around her, Harold's tears spilling over- _mon ami, mon ami -_ phone lighting up in her fist with Nate and Serena, and lifted, limp and gasping, to be laid on the sofa against the adjacent wall, chenille throw pulled up to her neck.

The chopper feed is long dead when, The Palace still locked down, Kathryn hands over her master key card and sends a team of detectives and medical professionals to lift another body, silent and oozing, onto a stretcher, zipping a shroud up over his head.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: I'm so, so sorry for the long delay! I moved in late August; the move was delayed twice, and it's been such a process to get my new home set up! (It's 110 years old and needed a few small projects done, which took WAY longer than anticipated and ate up literally all my free time.)**

 **I want to say thank you, thank you, THANK YOU SO MUCH to each and every one of you who has taken the time to read, review, send PMs, favorite and follow! I've tried to make sure I reach out to each new follower to express my thanks; I'm sorry if I've missed anyone. Please know how absolutely delighted I am to have you as my readers. I very much hope you'll enjoy this chapter, and all the rest, too. Thank you so much for lending me your ear- or eyes, as it were. =)**

i.

He's poised over "Ignore," expecting Serena or Nate, but it's the front desk of The Palace. It's Kathryn.

He exhales through his nose as he lifts the phone back to his ear, eyes skyward, elevator picking up speed now that they're approaching the top floor.

"Chuck," she says at a whisper. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Had some trouble with the elevator," he drawls, vaguely injecting a question mark into his statement.

"Serena called."

He grinds his teeth.

"Serena," he murmurs, "tends to get rather fanciful in tense situations."

Kathryn is in no mood. She huffs angrily in his ear: "Get back upstairs and stay there, and I'll make it like this never happened."

"If you were watching, you know nothing _did_ happen," he tries to reason.

"That your father's gun you were pulling out of your pocket a few minutes ago?" she retorts, and doesn't wait for a response. "Just put it away and we'll erase this whole thing."

"Done," he agrees, as the elevator glides noiselessly to a stop at PH.

Serena is waiting for him, alone, hair pulled into a messy ponytail now, deadly serious expression ironic against her sweater and lounge pants that are slung low enough to reveal she's wearing pajama shorts underneath.

He steps off the elevator and regards her crossed arms. "Miss me?"

She surprises him by moving toward him, arms opening like she's going to embrace him. He steps back. There's a loaded revolver in his pocket.

Serena checks, arms lowering to her sides. She clears her throat softly, eyes downcast. "I feel better knowing we were thinking more along the same lines than I realized."

 _So. Bait time?_

He steps around her, shaking his head minutely, the pocket with the gun as far away from her as he can get it.

She catches his elbow. "Kathryn said she'd take care of it. Erik doesn't know."

When he meets her eyes, she's brimming with tears. He waits for what she really wants to say.

Doesn't have to wait long. She blinks, shifting her feet, and her gaze drops floorward. "Blair keeps sending me to voicemail."

He hesitates long enough to shift his hand in his pocket, making sure the revolver is facing the other direction, before raising the arm that's closer to her. Her head lolls against his shoulder, loose ponytail shifting and falling against his chest, as she stifles a sob into his coat.

ii.

Jenny's eyes are puffy, clear liquid dripping from her nose, when she disentangles herself from her brother's arms and chokes out that she's going to take a shower.

When she emerges after an uncharacteristically long time, Dan has a fresh cup of coffee waiting for her, plus toast for both of them. She smiles gratefully, wet hair dripping onto a sweater she stole from his dresser. She reaches for her phone.

He grabs it first and places it out of reach, on an end table in the corner. "I think we've both had enough of that for a while," he says.

She rubs at her swollen eyes and sinks down next to him, reaching for the mug with her other hand. "You're right."

After all, he's moved his laptop out of their way, too.

iii.

Master key card back in its pouch and underneath Bart's passport- check.

Revolver back exactly where and how it was before, missing no bullets, spilling no secrets- check.

He closes the safe's door softly, spins the dial, and turns on his heel to head to the media room.

Buzz.

"Everything okay over there?"

He snorts. "Other than that you were apparently outdone at counterintelligence."

"We got him, didn't we?"

 _He got himself, more like,_ Chuck thinks.

"The detective and commissioner will be heading over to the Waldorfs' to deliver the news."

"She knows," he comments boredly, pausing in the corridor so he's far away that no Van Der Woodsens hear him.

"You did a lot," Tyler says abruptly, "kid- a real lot. He might have hurt someone else if you hadn't jumped on this. Not that it's a good situation by any stretch, but you should be proud of how you stepped up here."

His empty pocket is conspicuously light against his leg.

"Thanks," he says.

iv.

Even as they're summoning a doctor, Blair reminds her parents and Dorota that she's not meant to be lying down, and she's propped up with pillows against the hard arm of the sofa. Her phone buzzes incessantly, though she's turned the ringer off for phone calls, and is in the middle of doing so for texts- interrupted constantly by the flood of supporting, stifling, classmates and friends who apparently lack the sense to leave. Her. _Alone_ -

When it chimes. That playful, thrilling, blood-curdling little chime.

"Miss Blair…"

Dorota knows that sound.

Her posture slackens, shoulders slumping in defeat- why can't this be _over_ \- as she clicks open the blast.

v.

Erik is not stupid. He's actually very, very bright.

Watchful, quiet; yes. Subtle. He's intuitive. And he's spent so long in his sister's shadow that he's learnt the benefits of being the less effervescent Van Der Woodsen.

And so it is that when Chuck swaggers into the media room, shrugging out of his coat and draping it over a chair, Erik's brown eyes take in last night's outfit, mussed hair (and not in the good way), and skittish eyes.

"Everything okay?"

Chuck cocks his head affected nonchalance, eyes sliding away.

"Had some trouble with the elevator." He drops into an armchair at one end of the sofa.

Serena, nose two shades darker of pink than it should be, glares at the television.

Erik scratches behind one ear. Like he didn't hear Serena before she came, shaky, back into the media room twenty minutes ago- _Chuck_? _CHUCK_!

He turns back to the screen himself.

"Glad you got it sorted out."

All three phones chime, one on top of the next, so that it's impossible to know who got the blast first.

vi.

"Miss Blair." Dorota is reaching for her phone; her mother looks ready to snatch it from her hands.

"Leave me alone," she murmurs.

Buzz.

Serena.

Silence.

Buzz-buzz.

Nate, and a text from Penelope.

Ignore. Ignore.

Buzz.

Serena: _Please answer. I need to hear your voice._

vii.

"Leave her alone," Chuck says, low, eyes sideways under half-closed lids.

"I can't leave her alone," Serena shoots back, strangled. "She needs someone. She can't shut us out."

She dials again.

"Maybe she just needs to breathe," Erik tries, his own gaze flickering back and forth from Serena's right hand, thumb insistent over the keys, to her left hand- tugging mercilessly at a piece of hair that's fallen across her cheekbone- to his future stepbrother's stillness that's too still to be peaceful. "She's been through a lot."

"We've _all_ been through a lot," Serena says, sending the text and clicking back to Blair's name. "We need each other."

Chuck squeezes his phone and looks back at the news coverage of the blockade, fifty five floors below. _I'm coming._

viii.

Buzz again.

Serena.

Blair exhales like she's just finished sprinting stairs, hot stress building in her stomach. "I need…"

Her head turns up to look at Dorota, but on the way she spies something on the mantel.

"Daddy. Is that yours?"

Harold looks over his shoulder. "Yes."

"Are you finished with it?"

ix.

Serena tries twice more, vehement in her punches at the phone's keyboard, sticking her finger in her opposite ear each time it begins to ring, like the boys are crowding her and making too much noise.

At last, she pulls it away slowly.

"Straight to voicemail," she says softly. "No ring this time."

Chuck turns his head at this.

She's silent for a full ten seconds.

"Can you try?"

He shakes his head. "She must have turned it off. Or it's dead."

"Or she blocked me."

"I'm sure she didn't block you," Erik reasons, pivoting. "She probably just needs to breathe."

The implication seems to twist at Serena; she pulls her knees to her chest and, never letting go of her phone, wraps her arms around her legs. "But we could breathe better together," she insists through her tears.

Erik blinks at Chuck, who, after studying her for several silent seconds, relinquishes responsibility by turning his head back toward the screen.

x.

"Miss Blair, I get you fresh cup, with extra foam…"

"I take it sweeter than you do, my love."

"Blair, what are you- "

The blast is the last thing on her screen as she places it in the deep mug, fine bone china, careful not to splash the coffee out onto the floor or the sofa. She blinks at it, at the words, as it goes in.

Coffee, she'd once been told, is the best way to fry an electronic. Corrosive. Far more damaging than water, and much less messy than a hammer.

Her phone is a little too long for the depth of the coffee left in the cup; light foam, half-sipped already by her father before they rushed in here to put on the news, before Dorota scrambled up the stairs to get Blair.

So she gets to see the buttons at the bottom of the device- she pitched it in headfirst- illuminate, flicker, and fade to black. The black that says the phone is dead. Deader than if someone put a bullet in it.

Her parents and Dorota are quiet when they see what she's done.

She looks up, at last, and hands the mug back to her father.

"Probably too sweet," she agrees. To Dorota: "I'll have a cappuccino."

Dorota's blue eyes are wide; she looks back and forth between father and daughter. Holds out one hand. Gaze holding Blair, Harold hands over the ruined coffee and ruined phone.

"Thank you, Dorota," Blair adds.

The screen is alive behind the Waldorfs; Blair nods over their shoulders, and both her parents turn, Eleanor as if on a physical delay, lips moving constantly, minutely, though no sound emerges.

There, on the screen, are Bart and Lily. Bart, eyes flicking to and fro; Lily, jaw set, nostrils flaring.

She can see them, but they can't see her. Can't reach her. Can't find her.

No one can.

The blast echoes through her, still; she even braces herself for more, her hand waiting to feel the familiar buzz of the last lifeline to her past existence, the one she just destroyed.

Chuck told her. About the coffee. God knows who told him.

She smiles. A Blair Waldorf smile.

xi.

 _My mother taught me not to speak ill of the dead, but in this case I think I'll make an exception._

 _Burn in Hell._

 _XOXO._

xii.

The news cameras kick back to life once the anchor is on the ground, making an impromptu landing on one of the scrapers of Midtown- thank God for emergency helipads- and relocating to the area around the NYPD barricade.

Within minutes, The Palace's monarch and his consort are floating at the front of the crowd, having tried unsuccessfully to gain entry to the Bass property.

"This is not your hotel right now, sir." The NYPD sergeant actually looks apologetic as he says this; pulls off his sunglasses, puts them in the breast pocket of his overcoat. He tugs down his stocking cap over his ears.

It doesn't take long for the anchor to find her way to Bart, and begin chirping excitedly about security measures in his hotel and whether he was involved in the investigation; did he personally tip off the NYPD; was he even _aware_ he's been harboring a dangerous criminal in one of his suites?

Bart's poker face is remarkable.

Lily nudges in, imperious, and looks down her elegant nose at the anchor, who stands a half-head shorter than she, even in platform heels.

"Mr. Bass has no comment," she informs the anchor with the finality of a physician announcing time of death.

Bart glances sidewise at her.

The anchor, dark side bangs sweeping against her jaw in a Hepburn-esque fashion, turns her whole body toward Lily. "And do you have any comment, Ms. Van Der Woodsen? About The Palace becoming the scene of a standoff with a dangerous criminal?"

Lily's eyes brighten, anticipating a challenge. "No more than were it any other location in the city."

"Any other comment about what's happened here today?" The microphone bobs back and forth between the anchor's face and Lily's as the woman persists. "You're well-acquainted with the Waldorf family, are you not? Do you care to send them any message over the air?"

Bart opens his mouth, then closes it as Lily draws a breath.

But the anchor prattles on: "Do you have any comment about the manner in which the investigation was handled by the NYPD? Any comment about Blair Waldorf? Any comment about future security measures at The Palace?" The microphone floats back toward Bart and Lily, as though waiting to see which of them she can provoke into a statement first. No one from the Waldorf family has spoken publicly; a Van Der Woodsen or, even better, the island's reigning king would be a close second.

Lily's cheeks flush. It's cold enough that she could pass it off as windburn.

As if to reinforce the image, Bart adjusts his black scarf and offers her his arm.

"Do you have children?" The words are knife-sharp and cut into the breathless chatter of the anchor. Lily's voice is warm, inviting, a hot cup of cocoa waiting next to an open fire.

"I don't, ma'am, no."

Microphone bounces back to Lily.

"I," Lily almost emphasizes, "do."

Bart's arm lowers a little, unsure if she's going to take it. She doesn't seem aware of his presence.

"Yes, it's my understanding that your daughter, Serena, is a lifelong friend- "

Lily cuts her off, so that the first syllable is lip-reading, rather than audio: "And at this moment, my three beautiful children are waiting in our family's suite upstairs, and my only comment is to them: that I will be up as soon as the NYPD have declared it safe for me to cross the perimeter."

Her gloved hand finds Bart's elbow, near the bottom of the camera frame. She looks directly into the lens.

"We'll be home soon, darlings."

Bart nods, slight, jerky, at the anchor, and turns to follow her as they disappear back into the crowd.

xiii.

Serena rests her head on her forearms and tilts it first to look at Erik, then at Chuck.

After a long pause, he looks over at the two of them on the sofa.

"Well," Erik says quietly, warmly, a tone of voice not unlike his mother's.

Serena manages a wan smile.

In spite of himself, one corner of Chuck's mouth ticks up as he turns back toward the screen. "Indeed."

xiv.

It's another hour and a half before Lily and Bart step off the elevator- no chime- their arrival heralded by the still-live coverage on the screen in the media room.

Serena throws herself into her mother's arms like a little girl. "Mom," she murmurs, fingers curling like a toddler who wants to be held but isn't sure how.

Erik follows suit, hugging them both from the side, one Van Der Woodsen woman in each arm.

Bart shuffles awkwardly to the side; Chuck steps around the gaggle of blondes. Extends a hand.

Their palms touch, and Bart moves forward, and then they're embracing. It's brief and stiff, but Bart's eyes are focused on him when they step back. "You're all right?"

Both hands rest on his son's shoulders.

Chuck's mouth actually goes dry.

"Yes, sir."

Bart blinks. He looks like he's going to say something else, but then-

"Has anyone talked to Blair?"

"No," Serena laments, a muted wail.

His father steps back. "I can only imagine what she's going through."

One of his hands lingers on Chuck's shoulder, and Chuck wants to bring up his own hand and anchor it there.

"We've all been through something this last week," Lily agrees, stroking her daughter's hair- perhaps trying to detangle it subtly at the same time- and unearthing one arm to caress her son's shoulders. "My loves." She kisses both their heads.

When they peel themselves apart, Serena glances at her outfit. "Sorry I'm in pajamas," she mutters.

"Don't apologize for anything today, Serena," Lily soothes, not even looking for Chuck as she reaches for him. Like he's her son, one of her loves. As she draws him in: "Catering is sending up a full lunch spread. We all need to spend some time together as a family. Erik, put on some water for tea, please?"

When no one is looking, she squeezes Chuck against her, still in her coat, the cheek and cashmere cool. "Are you all right?" she says low in his ear.

He squeezes back, just briefly, feeling a rush of affection for the woman who is gluing these broken fragments of two families together. Who just called him one of her children for all the world to hear.

"I'm better now," he says honestly.

"Hot water with lemon?" she teases, releasing him and untying the belt on her coat. "We do have bathroom mock-ups to go over." Chuck smiles, but Lily is already moving away, gushing to his father that his son has exquisite taste in interior design- did he know that?-

xv.

The NYPD arrive first, before the doctor, and their visit is swift and painless.

He's dead.

They haven't confirmed how long he's been a guest at The Palace.

They found a copy of Blair's Page Six spread in his hotel room.

Blair is suddenly aware of the black on her thigh, on her face; her skin crawls, imagining the stitches are tickling her. She wills herself not to squirm.

They don't need her to ID him.

The detective looks her in the eye when he tells her this.

Then there's silence.

Her lips are dry and chapped and they stick together when she opens her mouth. She has to lick them before she can speak.

"Thank you," is all she says.

xvi.

The day stretches by; the blockade is eventually removed in the early afternoon, though parts of the sidewalk are still roped off with yellow police tape.

Nate is salty and he smells like sweat. He's still wearing his hoodie from this morning; he never changed after he read the 8 AM blast. He paced his kitchen for several minutes, trying to figure out what to do, tried getting ahold of Chuck, and eventually managed to get out of his townhouse without being accosted by paparazzi.

Now he's at a diner a few blocks from The Palace, where he's been killing time on a corner stool at the bar for hours, waiting.

Waiting.

He's texted himself twice to make sure his phone is working properly; he flips it open every five minutes, at least, just in case for some reason the notification doesn't light up the screen while it's closed.

Checked their log.

 _We don't need him._

It's the last he heard from her, over five hours ago.

When it was all over- after he jumped almost out of his skin, nearly spilling his coffee in the process, barrel of a pistol pressed to temple and with artful symmetry, a spray spilling from the opposite side of the face- he thought maybe he should go to see Blair. Put one foot on the ground, half-sliding off the barstool, gesturing for the waitress so he could pay his bill.

But by the time she came over to him, he'd put his foot back up on the stool's footrest.

"Another coffee, please," he said. "And what kinds of pie do you have?"

Brown Waldorf eyes blinking, not unkindly, at him.

As he waited for the elevator, Blair upstairs in her bed with her stuffed bulldog, tears dried and eyes as puffy as his.

 _Thanks for coming over. To check on her_.

 _I'm happy to do it,_ he'd replied.

Waldorf eyes glancing at the elevator door; no noise from within; they had several seconds at least.

 _Nate the Great_. Light tone. Teasing. He'd looked up then.

 _Not at all_.

Harold seemed to agree. _How's Serena?_

The question hung in the air between them as Nate blinked, shifted his weight, wiped his still-dripping nose- _I_ -

The elevator dinged, and the door slid open.

 _Goodnight,_ Harold said, and stood watching Nate until the doors closed.

So instead, he's eaten two slices of pie. Pecan first, then apple a la mode. Cinnamon ice cream.

And waited for his phone to buzz.

It didn't; it chimed with the smug blast and lit up with classmates texting him, but not with her.

xvii.

In typical Upper East Side fashion, lunch stretches long into the afternoon, into coffee around the fireplace with soothing classical flowing from the concealed speakers and the loving murmur of post-traumatic familial conversation.

He makes it almost three hours before he's twitching to get the hell out of there.

Serena continuously loops back to Blair, how she misses her and needs her and knows she has to be patient, but she wants Blair to know she's there for her right now-

And he thinks Lily is strikingly smart, because she betrays none of how much Blair and Chuck have been interacting all week. She just listens, with her mother's steady reassurance, and never so much as eyes Chuck when Serena isn't looking.

Bart begins to get antsy himself, and Lily turns her focus on him, keeping him engaged, asking him how the staff is holding up and whether he needs to do anything further with the police.

"Xavier is handling it," Bart says. "Kathryn handled everything this morning, but I've given her the next week off to recover. I told her to go to some island somewhere and forget all this."

"How was she? Should we send a note?"

Bart blinks at her, confusedly. Chuck watches the exchange, amused. His father is probably thinking: _Did you not hear me? I gave her a week off. Why would we send a note?_ And Lily is probably thinking: _How can we add a human touch in the wake of such an unfortunate series of events?_

"She was actually very upset. The surveillance system malfunctioned somehow during the lockdown, and none of the cameras worked after the building went to generator power. We just renewed our contract with the vendor and they'd assured her it would run on any power source, so she wants someone's head. I had to convince her to let Xavier handle it." Bart takes a sip. "Her dedication to her job is admirable, but it's not as though she could have fixed it, especially given the circumstances."

"I can't blame her," Lily croons. "What unfortunate timing for such a glitch."

Chuck and Serena, over the brims of their respective coffee cups, glance at each other, and then away.

Erik clears his throat. "So this was for the whole building?"

"Yes. Everything runs off one mainframe, which short-circuited or something. It's above my pay grade." Bart shrugs and takes a sip.

"I see." Erik sets his saucer on the table.

Lily follows suit and clasps her hands, looking at the already-dying Manhattan afternoon. "Hopefully this can be the start of a period of real healing, firstly for Blair, but for all of us that care about her, too."

Serena, morosely: "If she'll let us help, that is."

"In times like these," Lily murmurs without turning away from the windows, "we have to be pliant and meet the needs of the person that's been harmed."

"Bend ourselves." It's punctuated with a loud sip before Serena, too, plates her mug.

"And do our best to carry on in any way we can find," her mother agrees.

Chuck realizes he's tapping his finger impatiently, silently, on his phone. He hasn't heard from Blair in hours, since they spoke on the phone; maybe hers is still turned off.

"I quite agree," Bart nods. "The best- the _only_ \- way through grief or trauma is simply 'forward.'" His hand stretched along the armrest of his chair, his fingers flutter upward, like he's going to reach for Lily, who's seated at the end of the sofa across from him. She doesn't see. His fingers sink back down.

Erik similarly reaches, then hesitates, then reaches for his coffee. "It's not necessarily easy, though. These things can change you. Make you see things- yourself- in a different way."

"Definitely. And other people." Serena's gaze is vacant as she draws her knees to her chest; it swivels to Chuck a few seconds belated.

Lily's face tightens into a smile, but no charming sparkle rises in her eyes. "And everything," she says softly, brushing her fingertips on Bart's knuckles, as she reaches for her own coffee.

xviii.

His phone buzzes, and he grabs it before he even has time to read the name that's illuminated on the screen.

Dan Humphrey.

He sighs noiselessly, pressing the green button.

"Hey, man."

"Hi, Nate," Dan says, then pauses. "Are- are you with Serena, by any… chance?" The "s" sound at the end of "chance" lingers in an affected casualty that even Nate hears.

"No. No- just grabbing a bite, you know…" He lowers his voice, in case a well-disguised paparazzi is at the diner's bar with him. "Avoiding going home. Stifling."

Pause. Humphrey sounds like he starts speaking mid-swallow: "Totally. I'm, uh, I'm just trying to get ahold of her, I haven't heard from her all day and I want to make sure- "

"She was sequestered in the penthouse of The Palace with Chuck and Erik," Nate cuts in. "So she's probably still up there. There are photographers everywhere, so she might not want to go anywhere until after dark at least."

"Do they… do they not have phone reception up there, or-?"

Nate can't help but smile at the tightness in Dan's voice. Oh, how well he can relate to the dizzying, desperate-for-answers siege that is loving Serena Van Der Woodsen.

"I'm not sure how well you know her mom, but she's the type to confiscate phones and enforce a full day of family bonding after something like this. A little all-over-the-place with that stuff."

Dan's tense silence stretches a little too long.

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about," Nate tries again.

A slow inhalation on the other end, and on the exhale: "Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you're right."

"Oh, hey- did you see the Gossip Girl blast? Crazy stuff, huh?"

"Yeah, my sister showed it to me this morning. But the, uh- well, none of the readership turned him in. I mean, obviously no one really turned him in, except whatever employee at The Palace, so. I guess no live stream."

"Guess not." Nate's coffee is lukewarm, but he doesn't mind. This place is half-full and he revels in the buzz of non-nosy strangers. "Shame. Not like she's ever done anything good for any of us, Blair included. Must not be great to be dating the #1 target of her blog, either, eh?"

"Mmm… it's, I mean, you know, it's worth it. Dating someone with that level of notoriety. It's worth it. For Serena." He clears his throat. "And yeah, Gossip Girl definitely hasn't done anything- good- but obviously it's not like she wanted any of this to happen, either."

Nate shrugs. "Not that branding Blair publicly as a slut helped anything." He won't go into his own reaction to it, his own reaction that left her alone and vulnerable last Thursday night.

"Yeah, of course. That's true. Of course."

"Jenny doing okay? She seemed pretty upset on Monday."

"She's, uh- she's mature for her age, but I mean, this has really shown how much. She's a strong kid. I feel like she's taking it better than I am."

A fond smile tugs at the side of Nate's mouth. "Maybe we should grab coffee sometime, after- this whole mess calms down."

"Yeah, yeah. Definitely. That sounds great, thanks. Uh- if you, uh, hear from Serena…"

"Don't worry about it, man. You'll definitely hear from her before I do."

He signals for the check when he hangs up.

"No more coffee, love?" The waitress- arms of a linebacker, face of an angel- simpers at him. "Don't need a third piece of pie?"

Nate smiles his most winning smile. "Time for me to be heading home." And stop hovering a few blocks away from her, breathless for a word, for her to need him, want him, think about him even- like he's thinking about her. Just like Dan Humphrey, but with no right to be.

xix.

The sun is slipping down over the horizon when Dorota carefully fits the black sweater over her head, watching as she gingerly adjusts the waistband on her lounge pants, trying not to shift too much inside the tight casing enveloping her torso.

Her mother having just retired to her bed after spending the day fretting and pacing and finally taking an Ambien, her father to his study at the other end of the wall, where Dorota would bet he went to cry rather than "catch up on some paperwork"- it's now just the two of them, the princess and her Dorota.

Blair calmed herself down, just an hour or so before, enough to be convinced to have some chicken noodle soup, appetite barely existent in the adrenaline of the trauma and shock of being face-to-face with the guy again, in pixelated high definition, and watching as he held the pistol barrel-toward-the-lens in both hands with what appeared to be cold, steady hatred, and then- then- the rapid switch; frenetic movements, suddenly the gun at his head, one finger curling around the trigger. And squeezing.

She took the tray in her room, and then carefully showered, new trappings of her rib injury peeled off first and replaced freshly when she was finished.

"No one's rung up from the lobby?" she asked quietly, for the first time all day, like she hasn't been thinking about it at all.

"No visitors- your father tell them."

But not him. She'd whispered to her father, safe from her mother's ears, that that didn't include Chuck. _Please?_

 _Of course, mon ami. Anything._

"Okay," Blair sighs, shuddering a little at the stabs of pain between her bound ribs. "How long do I have to wear this?"

"At least until checkup next week," Dorota apologizes, holding out her own forearms for Blair to brace against so she can lower herself to her bed. Dorota kneels and slips the silk-wool socks onto her feet. "Need to make sure ribs knit." She gives Blair the hardest look she can manage, a silent rebuke for not taking her broken bones seriously.

"Could I puncture a lung?" Blair asks seriously, digging her fists into the bed and straightening her spine as she feels another pinch. "If I twisted hard enough?"

"I doubt."

Dorota stands and finds Blair's brush, circling to the foot of the bed to detangle her wet hair.

"Are you tired, Miss Blair?"

"No." It's a lie; they both know it. She's struggling to keep her eyes open; her ribs are throbbing; and she's oddly satiated by the chicken soup. Who would have thought the sensation of a full stomach could be so comforting, rather than ringing an alarm bell in her head? "Not yet."

"Maybe could lie down," Dorota says quietly, "rest until he gets here."

Blair blinks, licks her lips, watching Dorota put the brush back in its drawer, her hair heavy and cold and dampening her sweater. "No, I'll wait."

"But lots of police, lots of investigating, and more photographers and reporters to avoid- may be difficult…"

She unfists her hands and holds them up as Dorota turns back toward her. "He'll come. I'll wait. Now help me up so I can get downstairs."

xx.

Bart clasps Lily's hand between both of his own, finally an intimate moment, just a moment, by the penthouse elevator door. "I've known I loved you, Lily, known I admired you- but until today I didn't realize quite how much I respect you. You're an inspiration. I don't deserve you." He kisses her knuckles gallantly.

Her eyes well, glittering in the soft lighting. "That's correct. You deserve much better." She kisses him on the cheek.

"Feel free to stay if you want," he says when the door opens behind him.

"Thank you." She squeezes his hand and lets him go.

In the media room, Erik presses Send. _I'm thinking of you, always. ILY. -Erik_

Serena said her phone was off, but she'll see it, he thinks, when she turns it back on.

xxi.

Chuck waits a torturous fourteen minutes after his father departs, pounding two more cups of coffee that do nothing to help his anxious stomach and picking at the Mediterranean olives strewn about the ruins of the charcuterie.

"Where are you going?" Serena asks from her spot by the fire when she sees him stand, keeping her voice low so Erik doesn't hear.

"To my suite."

She looks him up and down. "Not out?"

He snorts. Derision will throw her off. "Oh, you're right- I forgot I made plans to go on a bender this weekend."

She doesn't even register the sarcasm. "Have you heard from her?"

"No." And it's not really a lie. She didn't specify the time frame.

She hauls herself out of the deep armchair she's in. "I'm coming with you, then."

"To my suite?"

"Yeah. I don't want to be stuck here all night with my mom explaining how this is a 'character-building experience.' Got any more lemons?"

He fights a smile, because that's exactly what Lily will spend the evening doing. "I'd rather be alone with my thoughts, sis. And you should be with your family right now."

"Awwww," she intones, dulcet, and moves toward him. "I thought you _were_ my family, Chuck."

It's uncanny how like her mother she is right now: lower face arranged into a perfect smile that doesn't reach above her cheekbones.

"We'll spend the whole day doing sibling bonding tomorrow," he insists, stepping back. Surely he can smarm his way out of whatever she's trying at. "You know, sharing intimate secrets and…" he gestures vaguely. "Cuddling and watching movies."

 _Finally_. An eyeroll. "You're swine. But…" she trails off, smoothing her hair behind one ear. "Will you promise to tell me if you hear from her?"

"Of course I will," he soothes, voice low and firm and authoritative. "Breakfast tomorrow? You, me and Erik? Eggs and siblinghood?"

Her eyes close, mouth curves, nostrils flare with a chuckle. "Deal. No earlier than ten."

xxii.

The elevator doors close and she trots up the stairs. "Mom," she says, "I'm going downstairs for a bit."

Her mother pulls the phone in Bart's office away from her ear. "Where, darling?"

"Out with Chuck. Just to grab a drink downstairs or something, I don't know." She gives her patented one-shoulder shrug: _I'm just an affable teenager._

"That's a wonderful idea, but don't take Erik if there's going to be alcohol, please. I'm fine with you having a glass of wine with Charles. I'm thrilled to see you bonding."

"Yeah," Serena agrees with a smile, shifting backwards through the door, "he's the best."

xxiii.

He stops off at 1812 long enough to shuck his outfit- still yesterday's, as it were- and takes a two-minute shower, ruffling his hair with a towel, finding gray trousers and a black sweater. He thinks of Kathryn when he sees his landline phone not in its usual spot; housekeeping obviously didn't come today.

He owes her.

He puts on a black wool coat- best to be as nondescript as he can- and takes the elevator down to the lobby. _Street is surprisingly empty,_ Arthur had said, when Chuck asked if they should meet in the underground garage.

He shakes Xavier's hand on the way out. Arthur pulls forward to the revolving door; Chuck looks both ways, turning up his lapels, and slips into the backseat in one quick motion.

Serena, also in a fresh change of clothes from her own suite, watches him go from the elevator she stepped out of just a few moments after he did. She eases herself against the same pillar she's hidden behind on more than one occasion, peering around carefully until the limo pulls away. Then she follows his path, hand in the air before she's even through the revolving door, and a cab stops within seconds.

"Hello," she says, craning her neck up the block. He's the only stretch on the road, and there- yes- he turns right. Uptown.

She shakes her head, a nasty smirk as she scoffs at her own gullibility.

The cab driver glances at her in the rearview mirror. "Hello, miss. Where to tonight?"

xxiv.

"Well," Arthur says, partition open so they can talk freely, "I guess we found them."

"Looks that way," Chuck agrees, eyeing the tangle of reporters and photographers that starts two blocks from the Waldorfs'.

Arthur hesitates; they're at a red light anyway. "Want me to circle? We can try the service bay, or…"

"Limo attracts too much attention." Chuck eyes the clean glasses and untouched Scotch he's neglected for the whole trip. "Do you have any paper?"

"Paper?"

Green light.

"Pull over," Chuck says.

Arthur glances at the seat next to him, and then opens the glove compartment. "Owner's manual, New York Times, dry-cleaning receipt…"

"Manual and Times, please. Do you have a pen?"

"Sure."

Chuck maneuvers up the side seat and takes them. "I'll take a cab back," he says to Arthur as he fumbles behind him for the handle.

xxv.

Relief blooms like a thousand flowers bursting into fragrant springtime bliss when he hears her voice.

"Serena- thank God…"

"I need to see you."

"I'd- yes- anywhere. Just tell me where to come to and I'll be there."

She pauses, and he hears the rush of street noise behind her. "Come outside."

xxvi.

He weaves through the nondescript maze of media laymen on the sidewalk, grasping the folded Times and, on top of it, the owner's manual folded open to the inside cover, which is blank and could easily be mistaken for a notepad. In the other hand, a pen, poised like he's ready to record the slightest bit of information about Blair Waldorf or any of her friends coming to visit.

He buttoned his coat as soon as he got out of the limo. Thank God none of these people are likely to pick out an Armani overcoat and Hermes leather gloves.

"Excuse me," he apologizes when he bumps against someone holding a dangling mic, but they don't even turn at the jostle.

He finds his way to the front of the crowd- SWAT presence disbanded now that the guy is dead- and sees that all three of her doormen are on duty, looking like harangued goldfish inside the lobby.

He turns down his lapel. Two of them recognize him instantly; the third is focused on a monitor showing surveillance of the building's exterior. The first two exchange words, one with a shake of the head that makes his heart sink- they have to know he's allowed up, that he's been invited- they can't turn him away-

And the second replies back with a shrug.

And turns.

And beckons him in with one hand.

"Zoo out there," the doorman says, combed mustache quivering with the words.

"It's a nightmare," he agrees.

"Put your collar back up so they can't get a good photo," the other one says. "Elevator's on its way down."

xxvii.

The air is frigid in Brooklyn. He opens the door and it blasts him in the face; he's rosy from the warmth of the loft and Serena's eyes are so blue and somehow seeing her fixes everything, erases the fact that she's ignored him, makes her perfect once again in his eyes, because she's his-

"I'm sorry," she says without preamble. "I'm sorry, Dan."

"Hey- you don't have to…" He steps out and reaches for her arm; she leans into his touch. "I understand."

"No. You don't." It's a whisper. "And you can't, it's just- I don't- I don't know who I am without her. It's like she makes me who I am. I'm Serena because she's Blair." She breaks off and bites her lip, looking at him with eyes that he didn't realize before look puffy. "Does that make any sense?"

He swallows. "Yes. Yes. Of course."

"It's pathetic to need someone else to define me, I know. I'm not like you. I don't- I'm not strong enough of a person, not yet, to stand on my own. I still need her to know who I am, I guess."

He reaches for her hand. "I understand that, Serena, I really do." They hold each other's eyes for a long moment. "I don't fault you for it."

"Can you forgive me?"

Her breath is white in the air.

"There's nothing to forgive." He leans in to kiss her and she meets his mouth with more fury than he anticipates, tongue and hands with a harsh, hot urgency.

"Inside," she mumbles against his lips, and walks him backward, grabbing for the door and shutting it behind them.

"I need you," she breathes into his mouth, "now."

"S- Serena…" he manages between kisses. "My dad is home, and Jenny- I mean, you can stay over, but I don't think…"

But her hands are already moving from the back of his head down his chest and she's unclasping his belt before he even realizes she's touching him.

"Right here," she says.

No one lives on the first floor; it's just mail and bikes and a dead-end corridor.

"What? That's- that's not a good idea." But he hisses at the contact of her hands below his hips.

"You sure?" she teases, hands slipping down, mouth on his neck. "Right over there- it's dark, there's an alcove… can we be quick?"

It doesn't take much more convincing; they're pressed into the corner of the alcove in seconds, coats off and draped over the bike rack, and Dan is stunned when he reaches for her underwear and there are none.

"I came prepared," she whispers into his silent mouth.

He "mmm"s back at her, and as he presses his hips against hers, he looks her in the eyes.

"I love you."

Her eyes drift closed in pleasure. "I love you too."

It's a great effort to keep silent, but once they're finished, Serena lets out a long, hot breath that washes over Dan's neck.

They right themselves; he hands over her coat and picks his up. "Jenny's dying to see you- "

"Oh- I think I actually should get home sooner rather than later," she murmurs apologetically.

"You… what?"

"I need to get back. I'm sorry. I was just dying to see you, but we have- the whole Van Der Bass family is spending the evening together, so I ducked out quickly, but I won't be able to evade my mom forever."

Dan smiles. "Squeezing you pretty tight?"

She grins back. "Totally."

"Do you want to come over for waffles in the morning?"

"I wish I could. The family bonding continues with group breakfast tomorrow." She winks. "Unless you're dying to eat French toast with Bart Bass?"

"Can't say that I am," he fires back, rueful. "Okay, so…"

She kisses his lips, warmly, and gently rocks her pelvis against his. "I'll call you?"

Smiling from the kiss: "Okay. I love you."

She steps around him, and he feels the loss of her warmth immediately. "Love you, too."

She shuts the door behind her without waiting to see if there's a cab nearby.

xviii.

The elevator dings, and she carefully draws in a breath, hand stilling on the copy of Vogue propped on a pillow that she's not looking at anyway. She chose to sit on the chaise, not one of the strong-backed armchairs, because she's supposed to be practicing maintaining upright posture on her own.

Her hair is still damp, and falling in loose, probably frizzy waves, but she doesn't have the energy to care.

His footsteps are hesitant, even as he unbuttons his coat. The penthouse is silent. Is she asleep? Is he too late? He whirls, hoping for a come-hither light in the kitchen, but it seems Dorota is off-duty. And he's not about to go knocking on doors looking for her.

He steps carefully through the foyer, craning his neck toward the stairwell, hoping to hear noise or see light coming from the direction of her bedroom.

He comes into view, uncharacteristic measure in his movements, almost tiptoeing. She opens her mouth, chapped lips sticking together _again_ , but doesn't know what to say. She's next to invisible in the dark room, oversized black v-neck sweater and black lounge pants, black socks with white stitching on the heels, and she suddenly feels small and overwhelmingly lost- like this is not her home, and these are not her clothes, and this is a dream of some kind- and her eyes brim with tears. She draws the back of one sleeve across both eyes, knuckle brushing lower lashes, and manages to stand without wincing.

He takes a few more steps, halfway to the foot of the stairs now, and stretches forward and up with an audible exhalation. He swallows. Maybe he should go?

Steps back. Turns, one hand reaching up to his collar to turn it down- even if he's just going to have to prop it back up to get out of here-

And there she is.

He opens his mouth. She's mostly a shadow, black against the darkness of the room, pale sternum and neck and face and hands all that are visible. And shining eyes.

"Hi," he says when he finds his voice.

She takes a step; his hand drifts back down, collar untouched. She takes another, movements a little stilted, and he says: "I'm sorry I'm so late, Lily wanted to have family time- "

She's striding toward him, but slowly, and he meets her halfway. She maneuvers close to him and then her arms are around his waist.

He swallows and hugs her back, arms circling shoulders. "Are you okay?"

"I hate you," she says into his lapel.

"For being late?"

She squirms, unfurls her arms- movements still stiff- and rears back, putting her arms inside his coat and flattening her palms on his back. "For this morning," she hisses, impressively intimidating for someone a head shorter than he who's embracing him. "I _hate_ you for that. Never do that again. _Never._ "

She wraps her arms around him, cheek resting on his shoulder.

"I thought you were going to die," she absolutely whispers. "What were you thinking? You could have _died_ -"

"I didn't," he points out, closing his eyes as she lolls her head against him, side of her cheek against his jaw. "I didn't die. Relax, Waldorf." He tries to tease, but his voice comes out raw.

She's lifted the hem of his sweater and is tugging at the button-down he layered beneath; frees it from his waistband; and her hands settle on the cotton undershirt under that. "God, how many layers are you _wearing_ , Bass?" she mutters, hands finally finding his lower back.

He laughs, low. "Sorry."

"Don't ever do anything that stupid again," she says again. "Please."

"Let's hope nothing about this situation ever happens again," he bargains.

They're silent for a minute, and his hand comes up to rest on the back of her head. This hand has palmed many things today- the landline, while Kathryn told him the guy was in the room right below his; the cool metal of the revolver; his father's shoulder; and now, Blair's damp, slightly unruly hair.

"What if you'd died?" she murmurs. "What if he…?"

 _Killed you?_

"Then I hope you wouldn't let me be buried in a lame bowtie."

Her fingertips bite into his skin. "Shut up. I hate you."

"You said that already."

"I'm glad you're safe," she whispers after another long moment.

He pats her back gently. "Likewise." His hand lingers; there's something off about how she feels. He moves it a little lower, just above her waist, and stops. "What's this?"

She swallows. "Splinted. Apparently I wasn't careful enough about keeping my ribs stable and now I've inflamed the whole area, so I'm splinted and bound until further notice."

His heart flips a little. "Does it hurt? Are you in danger?"

"It just hurts when I move the wrong way. But I'm in the least danger I've been in for a week, so I'll take it."

She steps back a little, carefully, and looks at him. "Have you eaten?"

"We essentially ate all afternoon." He smirks down at her. "I don't know how Lily keeps her figure."

"Damn the Van Der Woodsens and their metabolisms," she agrees. Her hands move idly on his back.

"You look tired," he observes. "Have you slept?"

She shakes her head, not bothering to retaliate for insulting her appearance. Which he notes.

And she probably hasn't slept because she was waiting for him. Which should feel good, smugly delicious, but doesn't.

"Do you want me to go?" His eyes search hers, which are unreadable in the dimness.

"Come up?" she replies. "If you're tired too?"

He is.

 _Bend ourselves._

But even if he wasn't, he'd say he was.

"You sure?" He glances down. "You don't need to be…"

He stops himself.

 _I don't want to be alone._

She shakes her head.

He pries his shoes off and leaves them in front of the hall table; they ascend the stairs slowly, slowly, Blair leaning on his arm but wincing every step nonetheless. He folds his coat over her vanity chair as she pulls back her duvet, an ill-concealed squeak as she sinks to the mattress. She murmurs that she's fine when he asks, but breathes through pursed lips like she does when she's steeling herself. She sighs when he flicks the light off, and hums as she exhales.

"Hurt?"

"No."

He peels back the other corner of the bed and sinks down next to her, on many fewer pillows, and only then does he realize what she's humming.

 _And your neck, and your back._

He turns his head, licks his lips. "What song is that?"

"Hmm?" She's drowsy, like she was in his gray sweater, loose like this black one is on her, and it occurs to him that he didn't even think to look for her collarbones.

"What are you humming?"

"Oh." She clears her throat languidly, shifting a tiny bit on the mattress and concealing her discomfort with another clear of the throat, this one sharper. "Some song from when I was little. It's stuck in my head."

 _And your beak._

She pauses, as if shaking herself to consciousness. "Do you need to set an alarm?"

He turns his head back and stares at the ceiling. "No. Sleep tight, Waldorf."

"You, too, Bass."

Her breathing evens out and he sees her in the dark, wrapped in his coat, face bleeding, squirming when he jostled her the wrong way- not knowing her ribs were broken-

 _Alouette, alouette._

Snow swirling around them, _she's not talking_ , panic pushing blood through his veins fast enough to make him throb, feeling her heart race, _I did this, this is my fault…_

His lips form the word silently: _Six._

 _Chuck._

He moves his hand beneath the covers, resting the back of it against her forearm, and she nudges her elbow into his palm. His eyes sting with unbidden tears. He shuts them dismissively. Fatigue.

 **A/N: And that, dear readers, is curtain on Act One of our story! Thank you again for coming on this journey with me. I'll be taking a brief break (no more than two weeks) to get all my ducks in a row before publishing the next chapter. I want Act Two to be even better than Act One, so I appreciate your patience as I try my best to do just that!**

… **Chloe xoxo**


	17. Chapter 17

**Hello, my beloved readers =) I really apologize for the delay between chapters; things have been super intense at work, so my schedule has been dicey. Going forward I am going to avoid providing ETAs because I feel terrible when I can't deliver, and I want to focus on providing high-quality content and telling the best story possible – so please bear with me and know I will publish absolutely as often as possible!**

 **I'm so grateful for each and every review, follow and PM. I've had a few people worry I am going to abandon the story, and let me tell you, that will never happen. =)**

i.

 _She cradles the broad bowl in her third and fourth fingers, the cool reassurance of the stem steady against the web between them._

 _She's stopped crying._

 _Her nose is red because it's cold outside._

 _There's soft music playing- ambiguous piano; the dead of January; no more holiday festivity- and not many people here. Most of Manhattan is hunkered down for the impending storm._

 _She takes another sip._

 _Her life was so different just twelve hours ago. She was at the apex of the life she'd always dreamt of then._

 _She can almost feel lips on hers, kissing her, masculine murmurings for only her ears, strong fingers gentle on her waist. She closes her eyes. She can almost, almost…_

When you were beautiful.

 _She's obviously drunk off a half glass, because it's that, and not the loss of Nate, that makes her jaw quiver. She steadies it against the rim and takes another sip of red, free hand slipping into her pocket to retrieve her phone._

 _A gush of frigidity hits her back as the door to the street opens down the short corridor behind her. She sighs inwardly. Why did she sit directly in the path of the door?_

 _(Because she needed to sit down in the first seat she could reach: trying to disguise her tears for windburnt eyes, commenting in answer to the bartender's attentive and low-toned "Good evening, miss," that it was getting cold out there, rubbing her hands together and patting her nose to reinforce the misdirection.)_

 _The bartender raises his head and her eyes perk up, but he's looking past her, greeting the new arrival with a smile and a lift of one hand. Ridiculous disappointment flares in her. It's a_ bartender.

I want nothing else to do with you.

You and the Waldorf name can weather this storm alone.

Now would you _please_ leave.

 _No missed calls._

Actually, you don't even have me.

 _No texts._

 _She squeezes the sides of the phone without thinking, and selects Shut Down when the power menu materializes._

 _The new arrival has shuffled off to her right and the last buzz of her phone turning off is punctuated with the soft slap of his leather gloves on the polished wood of the bar. She pockets the phone and looks over._

 _He's taking off his scarf, hanging it on a wall hook directly to the right of the seat he's chosen, at the end of the bar. Absently she swirls her red, watching him for no other reason than that she has nowhere better to look. He shrugs out of his coat, hangs it up likewise, even stops to brush off the shoulders and straighten the sleeves._

 _He turns to the bar, but then, before she realizes, further- and sees her. Their eyes meet. His gaze is warm and brown and steady._

 _One corner of her mouth twitches up in an excuse-me smile, and she glances away. She hears the exchange to her right;_ one last breath of fresh air before we're trapped inside for God knows how long - _and adjusts her headband, spine imperceptibly straightening on the tall chair where she's perched. She crosses her legs the other direction._

ii.

 _Friday, January 25_

"Two minutes."

Bart nods without looking up from the paper he's skimmed dozens of times. It's succinct, subtle; it admits no guilt, but manages to exude an almost abject humility.

Grant Ketterley, Bass Industries' Director of Public Relations, idly drums his fingertips on the upholstered back of one chair that's pushed into the small round table in the corner of Bart's office. A great strategic mind who can upend any maelstrom to show its copper bottom, Grant has nonetheless never been able to quite shed his love of the tactical kill. The man rises and sleeps by the pulse of the media. He's probably itching to go browbeat a reporter for something, not stay here counting down the seconds until the phone rings for Bart Bass to say "Approved" so that there might be a _chance_ a press release or media relations presence could be needed.

Bart has told him to have a seat more than once, and he complies each time, but finds himself back on his feet within minutes.

At the other end of the table, chair yanked out and right foot resting on it- clasped fingers resting with likewise agitation on the elevated knee- is the timekeeper, Controller of Bass Industries, Matthew Pivent.

On the love seat opposite, Bart's Chief Legal Officer, Loren Jesselson, flicks through emails on her laptop. "They understand the sensitivity of getting this out before close of business?"

"I've reconfirmed at least three times."

She nods.

Grant looks over. "It's not likely the media will catch this on a Friday afternoon."

Bart glances up, but his head remains bent to look at the paper on his hand. "If they do, though, it's a field day."

"If we're having second thoughts," Loren replies, "we could still make it a private contribution. Anonymous, even."

"One minute." Matthew glances at his watch; it's 4:04 pm. The market has been closed for four minutes. They're in the clear.

"I want to be clear that Bass Industries, not just the Bass family, fully supports the efforts of the NYPD. A private contribution doesn't communicate the same message."

At the same time, he does not have to say, a slew of media attention makes the donation look tacky.

And, none of his lieutenants have to say, no one actually doubts that to begin with.

Quiet falls, punctuated by the light pitter-patter of Loren's fingers on her keyboard and Grant's restless drumming. Matthew pulls up a draft on his Blackberry and sends it at the thirty-second mark, confirming the call time.

He's barely finished sending it when the phone trills, twenty seconds early.

Four pairs of eyes exchange glances.

Bart clears his throat as he picks up the mouthpiece; Grant drifts closer; Matthew sets both feet on the floor; Loren closes her laptop.

"Bart Bass."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Bass. This is Kent Slusser from JP Morgan. I'm calling to confirm a wire."

He nods, gaze back on the press release.

"Good afternoon, Kent. I trust all is well with you. Please proceed."

"Indeed, sir, thank you." Kent strikes a few keys. "The wire was initiated yesterday and is being held in escrow. My notes indicate the amount is ten million US dollars, even; to be extracted from Bass Industries' tertiary treasury account with JP Morgan, for immediate release."

"Completed by close of business," Bart confirms, eyes tracking to Matthew, who nods reassuringly as Kent confirms.

"Yes, sir. To be transferred to the City of New York, care of New York Police Department, Office of the Commissioner."

"That's correct."

"May I go ahead and release the funds now, sir?"

"Yes, please do."

Three more keystrokes, then a click of a mouse. "The funds have been transferred, Mr. Bass. The wire should be complete in the next thirty minutes. Bass Industries will receive a written statement with all the details of the wire, including the confirmation number. Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

"No, Kent, that's all for today. Please give my warmest regards to Megan."

"Thank you, sir. And to you and yours."

Bart hangs up. It's 4:05. The markets have been closed for five minutes; the financial world will begin closing down in forty minutes. It's a tight window for transferring eight figures between two public institutions under the radar.

"And now we play the waiting game." Bart leans back in his chair; Loren flips her screen back up. Matthew cracks the door behind him and asks Ellen, Bart's assistant, to ask Dining to send up some coffee.

iii.

 _Friday, January 25_

It's like climbing to heaven trying to reach Blair Waldorf, Dr. Genove thinks after a lengthy wait in the lobby while her identity is verified- _apologies, ma'am; security is tight for any Waldorf visitors these days_ \- followed by a stately elevator ride to the penthouse, a thorough welcome and check-in by the Waldorfs' housekeeper, and a final ascent up a curving staircase to her new patient's bedroom.

She glances at her watch as she knocks, shrugging the sleeve of her sweater back to uncover the timepiece.

4:05.

She'll make sure they use the full hour.

"Come in," Miss Waldorf says.

And she does, and there, abed like a queen in her lying-in period, is the face that one can hardly avoid if one tries, the last two weeks in New York. She looks different: un-made-up, tawny hair messy and unrestrained by a headband, wearing an oversized turtleneck in an ambiguous gray-green shade, but if one looks directly at the face, it's instantly recognizable as the same girl.

"Hello, Blair. I'm Dr. Isadore Genove. Is it all right if I call you Blair?"

Her patient nods, a small movement. "That's my name."

Dr. Genove sets down her shoulder bag. "If you'd prefer, I can call you Miss Waldorf."

"Blair is fine." A small smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes, the doctor notes.

She takes care to keep her own voice even as she gestures to the chair at Blair's vanity. "May I sit here?"

"Yes, of course. Did Dorota offer you anything to drink?"

"She did- but I'm fine, thank you." Dr. Genove carefully turns the chair to face Blair, and takes a seat. They look one another over for a few seconds. "I love your room."

Blair's eyes do seem to brighten at this, but there's a sadness to her expression. "Thank you."

"This shade of blue is beautiful. It's like a cornflower blue?"

"French blue, actually." Blair clarifies steadily.

"Ah."

"Common misconception."

The doctor hesitates, then.

And she doesn't detect that Blair's right hand, no longer splinted but still wrapped, nudges something further away under her duvet.

"So," Blair continues, "where should we start?"

iv.

 _Friday, January 25_

The first Friday afternoon back to school lacks completely the usual ebullience of weekend promise. Gossip Girl has gone quiet again; students haven't shaken off the shock of seeing one of their own catapulted from star of the Constance-St. Jude's media to star of the actual media, and tipping has dried up as completely as if someone shut off a valve.

Ties are still worn straighter; skirts are still worn lower; hallways are still quiet; the library is still crowded.

Nate and Chuck are waiting in the courtyard, safely sheltered from any prowling paparazzi (who have failed, sadly, to disappear), for Arthur to cut through the late-afternoon traffic and take them home. Since an "anonymous" source reported to Page Six last Sunday that Nate Archibald took a cab ride from The Palace Hotel to his townhouse, "in what appeared to be a silence that could have descended into tears at any moment," Chuck has been his ride to and from school.

Their classmates stream out the school doors and disperse, tugging scarves high and hats low, shouldering their way through the much-diminished crowd of photographers and reporters that floats beyond the gates.

Serena is upon them before they realize. Chuck opens his mouth to say hello to her, but her fingers are on his lapels before he can utter a sound.

Nate's brow furrows when he sees, even as his neck cranes around the corner to see if the black stretch is out front yet.

"Can I help you?" Chuck teases as Serena puts her hands inside his coat, patting at his chest, then digs under another layer, brushing aside his tie to check his inside breast pockets. She frowns.

"I need a cigarette," she mumbles dismissively, like he's bothering her with the question, withdrawing her hands and sliding them in his outer coat pockets next.

He moves his hands out of the way, inwardly shaking his head even as he does so. "I don't have any."

She huffs and shoots him a look, leaving her hands in his pockets. "Not _any_?"

"Sorry."

"Since when are you smoking?" Nate asks, eyes intently moving over her face.

"Well, I guess I'm not," Serena retorts, with another pointed look.

Chuck laughs a little, mirthless, and looks around the corner. "I can offer you a ride home as a condolence, sis."

"I'm waiting for Erik," she says.

"You okay?" Nate asks.

"I'm fine." And she turns and goes.

"She was in such a good mood yesterday," Nate murmurs, shaking his head as Serena stalks away. He runs a hand through his hair, forgetful, and then hisses as something smarts. He examines his hand briefly: new scabs growing over a still-fresh wound, covered irresponsibly by a single large Band-Aid, _rinsing bits of debris out of it in the kitchen sink, his mother shining a light on it to check for gravel, shrouded in the now-stained-beyond-repair hand towel Chuck draped over it in the back of the limo fifteen minutes before-_

And then shakes it out.

Chuck's eyes roll toward him, one corner of his mouth twisting wryly. "Nothing we haven't seen before, really," he observes.

"True," Nate agrees, eyes drifting back toward where they can still see her, and just then Arthur pulls up.

v.

 _Thursday, January 24_

Blair is blonde now.

She doesn't warn him, and so when he arrives, he stops short on the threshold to her bedroom. "Hi," he manages.

Her lips part, and she breathes out. "Hi." She waits, and then: "What do you think?"

"It looks great," he lies. "It's a nice color."

Which it is, but it's all wrong for her. It completely washes her out. She barely looks like herself.

"I told the colorist I wanted the most common shade of dirty blonde there is, the one that most of the fake blondes in the world wear. She wanted me to try something more gold, said it would go better with my skin." Blair flicks a hand, wrapped in a cloth bandage now, no longer puffy and splinted. "I told her I wasn't interested in turning heads."

He blinks.

She smirks.

"Though I seem to have rendered you speechless."

He smiles, a slow, easy smile. "You definitely have."

There's a sound on the stairs behind them: Dorota, coming up with a tray for Chuck.

"I ate already," Blair says, and gestures to the teacup on her nightstand. When she turns her head to the side and he's looking at her profile, it's easier to recognize her.

When they're alone again, and he's balancing the tray on his lap and eating roast salmon and risotto, Blair pulls a copy of Page Six out of her bedside drawer. Unsurprisingly, this week's feature was on her again, more pictures of her and Nate, and her and Serena, filling the pages with pixelated confidence and poise. Painted lips, proud posture, headbands and flowing dark hair.

Chuck watches her muse slowly over the pictures.

"I didn't want to keep pretending to be her," Blair says, without looking up, as she flips another page.

He puts his fork down on the folded napkin on the tray, not letting the silverware clink against the plate, in case it disturbs her.

"Who do you want to be?" The question almost cracks. He feels afraid to ask it.

She shakes her head, a tiny movement, and swallows. When she looks up, her eyes are wet.

"I never asked you, but… why were you out there that night?"

His nostrils flare. He moves the tray off his lap and balances it on her vanity, then crosses, with unsure feet, and perches at the side of her bed.

"I was coming home," he says.

"What time was it?"

He shrugs slowly. "Three-something?"

She nods. "It was storming for hours by then, right?"

He nods too.

"So you were… walking home?" The way she says the words indicate how foreign the concept is.

He swallows. "From 81st. I…" he trails off, but she waits. "I thought the walk would do me good." His heart actually flips at the vulnerability of the statement.

Her lip, no stitches anymore, quivers for a second. "As it turns out," she says, eyes bright with tears, "it did both of us good."

No. No, no, no.

His heart starts to burn.

"I slept with someone," he blurts out, almost adding _else_ to the end of the confession, and thankfully stopping himself.

To his surprise, she smiles, a sad smile. "I guess I did, too," she almost whispers.

He inches closer. She doesn't shy away. "Blair, I'm…" he stares into her eyes; her face swims for a moment, as his own eyes mist over. He blinks it away. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be." She reaches for his hand then, blonde hair falling over her shoulder as she leans forward, and he moves closer still, since she's not meant to be bending and they both know that.

Their hands touch, just as she says: "You're Chuck Bass."

His eyes flick up to meet hers, mouth dry.

But her expression is soft. "Don't apologize. If you were anyone else, you wouldn't have been there."

His heart sinks, because she thinks he's apologizing for sleeping with someone; and really, he's apologizing for all of it, for the blast and for Bemelman's and for wanting her to be hurt, and for, ultimately, getting what he wanted.

 _If I were anyone else,_ he tells her silently, _it's_ you _who wouldn't have been there._

Her fingers squeeze at his gently. "So, thank you." She releases him. "Finish your dinner. Salmon is disgusting when it gets cold."

He stays with her until nearly midnight, texting Arthur to dismiss him around ten, and when he gets home he goes straight for his closet.

The pink sweater and button-down were returned to his room days ago, having been sent for dry cleaning, the spots of blood on the cuffs where he dabbed at Blair's face in the cab magically erased, as though that whole night never was. That whole night, sitting at Bemelman's hating himself for thinking about her, then hating her for having that effect on him, then trying, trying to catch her- the eagerness with which Cadence unhooked the line of buttons down his chest, fumbling back into his clothes in the dark, the chill that hit him when he slid his coat off and dropped it on Blair's shoulders, trying to stop the trickle of blood in the forced-air heat of the cab as they crawled uptown, waiting in the hospital with her coat balled against his chest like it was her he was holding-

The pink shirt and sweater hung like silent angels, smilingly assuring him that whole night never was.

He stared at them the first night they were placed there; checked the cuffs to ensure all the stains were removed; and backed away.

Now he comes right at them, purposefully. Not bothering to unhook, he nearly tears off a button trying to yank the shirt from its hanger before he gives up and plucks the metal hook itself, and turns and walks back out of his suite. Retracing his steps the morning of the first Page Six blast, he strides with quiet rage toward the corner of the building, where the trash chutes are. He opens the hatch and shoves the sweater and button-down, hanger and all, down the slide.

Heart pounding, he lets the suite door slam behind him, leaves his shoes and coat in a trail on the floor, climbs into bed, and buries his face in a pillow.

His right hand fumbles blindly for another pillow, which he pulls down over his head.

It starts as a roar: guttural, furious; if he wasn't Chuck Bass, one could say it ends in a whimper: desperate and lonely.

But he _is_ Chuck Bass, and Chuck Bass doesn't whimper, so when he's roared himself hoarse, he gets up and pours himself a double.

vi.

 _Thursday, January 24_

Serena's warm gaze bubbles, concerned, over a chicken salad and Perrier: "What happened to your hand, Nate?"

"Slipped the other day during practice," Nate says, easily. Vague team sports injury. Nothing to see here.

Serena nods, spearing a large forkful. "Do you need stitches?"

"Nah. Scabbing over already." He holds up the back of the hand in question, as if she can see through the beige fabric of the Band-Aid.

"That's good," she simpers without looking.

"You're especially vibrant this afternoon, dear sister," Chuck intones.

"I saw Blair last night." Serena smiles at him, but her eyes flatten when their gazes meet.

Nate looks up from his sandwich. "How is she?"

"She's okay, considering. She just needs a lot of support and love right now." She picks up her salad dressing and pours the rest of the container into her bowl. "She called me to help her with something personal."

"She won't return my calls at all." Nate frowns. "You're lucky."

 _Lucky, he thought, bitterly, looking at Nate's woeful blue eyes. You don't even know how lucky you are._

A toss of blonde waves. "Are you calling her cell? She doesn't have it anymore. You have to call her house." Serena clips her words at the end, her movements neat, confident, like she's a subject matter expert teaching a seminar on Blair Waldorf.

"She got rid of her phone? Why?"

She gives him a look. "She needs time to recover, Nate," she lectures. "That means fending off unwanted invasions of her privacy."

Nate shifts in his seat; Serena seems oblivious or indifferent to the slight she's just made at him.

"Her dad left yesterday, back to France. Her mom left the day before."

Her mother left on Monday, actually, but he's not about to correct Serena.

"They left her alone?" Nate asks, disbelievingly.

"She has Dorota," Serena defends. "And she has me."

"And others," Nate mutters. "It's not like-" he pauses, glances sideways at Chuck- "you're the only one who cares about her."

Serena smiles a smile that could be sympathetic or smug. "Of course not. But we're basically sisters. It's just a different level of connection."

vii.

 _Wednesday, January 23_

She doesn't call him tonight.

He's ready; waiting; he's had three espressos. He's prepared to stay up as late as she wants.

He came home, still early enough to be definitely on the safe side, flushed, sweat between his shoulder blades, blood on his shirt, a manual-focus camera cradled awkwardly in both hands, and left his phone on vibrate while he showered.

Got out; put on pajamas; ordered dinner and coffee service; and waited.

He can't know that Serena is leaning forward, nearly in the front seat of her cab, at that very moment, urging her driver uptown faster, like she's afraid Blair will change her mind.

He can't know that while he eats his dinner, eyeing his phone every few minutes, Serena is gaping wide-eyed as Blair tells her, tearfully, why she's called. Nodding in slightly horrified, reluctant, compliance.

He can't know that as he hesitates, giving it a few more minutes before he starts pounding the espresso- because surely she's going to call- Serena is clutching Blair's hand, watching bleaching agent being painted onto Blair's dark, wet locks.

That when he gives up, thinking she must have gotten tired and gone to bed, and slips into a jittery half-sleep, rife with vivid dreams that he can only marginally recall later, Blair's eyes are meeting Serena's in her bathroom mirror while one of the city's premier colorists blow-dries the hair she's just toned into a shade that, she's tried to warn the girls, is going to do nothing for Blair's coloring.

In fact, Chuck does dream of a blonde that night, though whether it's a blonde Blair Waldorf, or Serena Van der Woodsen, or Lily Van der Woodsen, or Jenny Humphrey, or even Cadence Alexander, he'll never remember.

viii.

 _Wednesday, January 23_

They go way uptown, to 106th, to a court near the FDR where they sometimes play. It's out of the way, but Nate's tired of the consequences of being seen in public, so Arthur takes the highway rather than going through town, and lurks around a corner where the stretch is inconspicuous.

The air is cold enough to make Chuck's nose run; his fingers, ungloved so he can grip the ball, are freezing, but his chest and back are sweating before they're done warming up.

"D'you ever think what might have happened if Serena went through with her idea of…" Nate's nose wrinkles in distaste (apparently forgetting he half-endorsed the plan)- "using herself as bait?"

"Not really." Chuck dribbles. The sound of the basketball is an unexpected balm, a familiar comfort. "She wasn't his type. Even if we knew where he was and were actually stupid enough to attempt something-" he backs up to three-point territory- "that was more of a fantasy than a plan."

He dribbles twice; winds up; shakes his head and starts over.

When he shoots, it swishes perfectly through the net without the slightest graze of the rim.

"Nice." Nate retrieves the bouncing ball with a swipe and backs up. "Yeah, I guess so. The idea of going vigilante was appealing, though."

Chuck smirks, like he's amused by the idea.

"I guess so."

Nate dribbles and passes to him; he passes back, leaving Nate meandering around the court.

"The idea of getting my hands on him," Nate muses. "You know?" He looks up, and suddenly Chuck wonders if he knows. If Serena told him.

"Yeah," he says. "Definitely."

After a moment, Nate chuckles. "I know you're more of a lover than a fighter." He holds the ball, elbows splayed out to the side like wings, thoughtful. He shakes his head. "After seeing her leg, though- I mean, that was…"

Nate shakes his head, his expression crestfallen.

"That was the worst thing I've ever seen."

 _Lucky_ , he thinks, unable to keep down the fast-forward of Blair bleeding onto his fingers, Blair breathing slowly while her heart raced in a state of Chuck-Bass-induced medical danger, Blair writhing because he jarred her broken ribs, Blair looking straight into his eyes and having no idea who he was, Blair grimacing while a doctor prodded between her legs and her tears streamed into her hair.

 _You have no idea how lucky you are._

ix.

 _Tuesday, January 22_

"I never thought I'd say this," Blair says in his ear as Dining wheels the coffee cart into his suite, "but I am sick to death of getting gifts."

He scoffs. "I'd imagine most of the unsolicited crap you're getting is unworthy of the term 'gift.'"

"That's definitely true." She glances at the feature on her family that's being replayed on E! News on mute at this very moment:

THE TROUBLED WALDORFS- ANOTHER KENNEDY CURSE?

She sighs as a graphic that looks like a rolodex of photos of her flicks across the screen, each one of them showcasing an elegant, shiny-dark-haired Blair Waldorf. "I've become America's Sweetheart."

He mouths "Thank you" to the retreating Palace employee who has set up his coffee service tray.

"And there's really nothing that can be done from a legal standpoint?"

"Given the federal manhunt, nationally televised suicide, lack of specific laws protecting…" she skips over the word _victims' -_ "…identities, and the fact that most of the places it's being reported are technically entertainment sources rather than journalistic ones, Daddy says it would take years and years to resolve and even then, the chances aren't good."

He sips his espresso. "That's unbelievable."

"Tell me about it." Her voice is dry. "I'm an embarrassment. The Astor side of the family is confused about whether to rush to my side or shun me for bringing shame on our house."

She tries to maintain her flatness, but her tone drops toward the end of the statement, and his lip curls in disgust. "How did _you_ bring shame on anything?"

"That's just how it is."

"That's ridiculous."

To his surprise, though it probably shouldn't be, she flares. "The Astors are one of the oldest families in America. We're born different than other people. It's not just money, it's being part of the clan. Upholding the tradition seamlessly is in my blood."

She's so prim and bossy, so like she was before, that he can't hold in a chuckle. "Easy, Tom Buchanan."

She's silent for a second, and then snorts. "Well, we _are_ ," she insists.

"I believe you." He's pouring his second cup; last night he was struggling to keep himself awake, pounding three espressos shortly after midnight when she showed no signs of slowing down. "But no one can control everything."

She neither agrees nor disagrees. She turns away from herself, the Blair smirking beautifully back at her from her own television set.

And instead, her eyes fall on the second spread in Page Six, with more pictures of Nate and Serena, and paparazzi photos of Penelope and Hazel from last weekend, and the intimidating silhouette of The Palace backlit by midday sun.

Silence falls, like it did last night, both of them propped with their earpieces on pillows, channel-surfing or page-turning on mute, as if they were in a room together.

A little while later, Blair clears her throat. "Chuck?"

"Yeah."

"Why were you speaking French in the cab that night?"

He's quiet for a few seconds. "You were speaking it to me, and I couldn't think of anything else to say."

Her voice piques. "Really? Why was I talking in French?"

He shrugs. "You thought I was someone else?"

"Who?"

"I don't know," he replies, then stops himself from lying to her. "A Monsieur Petitdemange? I mentioned it to your parents, and they said you knew him when you were little. Some summer trip you took to France."

Blair pauses. "Hmm. I don't remember anyone by that name."

 _She must have been six or seven. Darling girl._

 _She wanted him to sing with her._

He starts to tell her that Monsieur was a bookseller, but stops himself.

"I might have heard you wrong," he suggests.

"It doesn't matter," Blair says.

 _A song about a bird._

Since falls again, until she asks him to tell her about how everything is at school, skimming over his mentions of Serena, and again until he asks her if she's relieved her mother is gone, and again until she tells him she's thinking of repainting her room.

And again until they're both drifting, and they say goodnight and hang up and Chuck switches off his lamp and Blair falls asleep with the lights on.

x.

 _Monday, January 21_

The double doors of Constance-St. Jude's are flung open wide, a welcoming embrace for the student body that returns with uncharacteristic eagerness, drifting through the schoolyard skittishly in plaid skirts and long wool coats.

Almost in spite of themselves, they slide, like magnets, toward Nate and Serena.

"How is she?"

"Have you talked to her today?"

"Is she okay?"

"Do you think she'll be back to school soon, or…?"

Serena's lips part, her mouth falls slightly open, enough to see the uncertain quiver of her tongue, and she closes her mouth and swallows and shakes her head and moves away too slowly to hide the tears that spring to her eyes. She makes a show of digging in her bag for something- what, no one ever knows- so her hair will shield her face until she can get out of view.

Nate doesn't drift away. Nate stands rooted, eyes darker blue and more intense than usual, dark circles under his eyes, and stares. He only has to do this a few times, holding his ground, before his classmates get the hint and stop asking him about her.

Dan catches up with Serena, reaching for her elbow, and she doesn't pull away. "Hi," she says softly.

"Hey. Good morning," he replies back, frozen almost in spite himself, like he planned to say something else but now that he's looked at her face he can't get it out.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you," she murmurs, eyes dampening again, wrist still bent at an odd angle from where her hand is tucked into her bag on the pretense of digging for the ever-elusive distraction: "It was an intense family weekend."

 _The phone is ringing, ringing, and he almost hangs up._

 _He's not sure what's possessing him to call her suite's land line. He obviously has her cell number. He can call her there if he wants to talk to her._

 _But a little twinge in his heart tells him that's not why he's clutching his own phone right now._

The corner of his mouth quirks up. "It went beyond brunch with Bart?"

Serena smiles back ruefully. "As if that wasn't torture enough," she affirms, finally sliding her hand out of her bag and blinking her un-made-up lashes at him.

Dan's expression falters.

" _Ms. Van der Woodsen, hi, I'm- I'm so sorry to disturb you- it's Dan-"_

" _Well, good morning, Daniel. What can I do for you?" She sounds bemused, like she's curious how he got this number, but is too well bred to ask._

Then: "He can't be so bad, right? Now that you're spending all this time with him. He must be developing some… fatherly instincts?"

" _N-nothing at all, I was just- I was just going to leave Serena a message, I tried calling her cell but it… it, there was some glitch, and I thought it might not be working, you know- " He chuckles, strangled. "Sending all her messages to cyberspace, who knows."_

 _He can almost hear Lily's smile. "Oh! Heaven knows, with the amount of cell phone use that girl partakes in, I wouldn't rule it out. Would you like me to ask her to call you? She's just having brunch downstairs with Charles."_

" _Oh, that's- that's nice. And how are you doing, Ms. Van der Woodsen? After everything that happened yesterday—are you and Mr. Bass doing well? I can only imagine how stressful that must have been."_

" _It's very kind of you to ask, Daniel, and we're both a bit shaken up, but there's steadiness in routine; I'm just about to dash off to the spa, and Bart has been in his office since dawn, which, I guess, is his own brand of Saturday soothing."_

"Yeah," Serena replies with a shrug, "I guess so. I mean, he's trying, at least."

Dan's dark eyes search her, sliding back and forth, probing at her gaze for a second too long. "That's good," he says, with a little nod.

" _So, do you want me to tell Serena you called?"_

" _N- no, that's- that's perfectly fine, actually, she just texted me-" closing his eyes as he wills the wish to be reality- "so I'll give her a call when she's finished with brunch. I'm sorry to- disturb you. Give my best to Mr. Bass."_

 _Lily's chuckle flutters. "I'll do that if I ever see him, Daniel. Have a nice day."_

Serena breaks his gaze. "I should go, I'm woefully behind on my reading for… well, everything."

"Okay." It's barely above a whisper.

She kisses him with surprising warmth, and lingers against him, and whispers, "I love you, Dan."

His hand finds her waist through her coat like he's bracing himself from a wave of emotion, and only opens his eyes when she runs her hand over his hair.

"I love you, too," he tells her, barely getting it out before she whirls and goes.

She hurries toward the foot of the steps, and he sees Chuck dragging himself- it really looks like an effort- up the top flight, alone, unnoticed, uninterrogated, skulking in the background, and he watches, heart in his throat, to see if Serena will go after him, after _Charles_ , and link her arm through his or murmur something to him-

But she goes the opposite way, hustling up the stairs at twice Chuck's speed, so that they go opposite directions at the top of the stairs with near-perfect symmetry.

xi.

 _Wednesday, January 23_

 _Lucky,_ he thinks. _You have no idea how lucky you are._

"Yeah," he nonetheless agrees with Nate's assessment of Blair's leg when he finds his voice, realizing it's been several seconds, shaking nightmare material out of his mind.

Nate shakes himself out of his own reverie, flaring nostrils highlighted because they're chilled pink, and dribbles, movements swift and jerky, passing the ball between his legs, switching his stance and repeating it, bouncing it on his fingertips and letting it spin. He passes it to Chuck, gets it back, bounces it over and goes for a jump shot, brandishing his palms above his head as he moves toward the basket.

Chuck dribbles. Passes it, hard. Nate leaps- impressive vertical today, even for someone of Nate's height and natural ability- and swipes it into one hand effortlessly, the other hand guiding toward the hoop. The dunk is perfection, and the ball hits the ground with a resounding _thwack_ , bouncing high on the rebound. Nate hangs on the hoop for a second as Chuck congratulates him, but he doesn't smile.

He drops back down, swiping his nose on one sleeve while he reaches for the now-listless basketball, but when he's palming it again, he's frowning. He turns back to Chuck, opens his mouth, and falters before looking at him-

And then he stops.

"Hey."

The smile, Chuck's first in days, fades instantly. "What's up?"

Nate's not looking at him. His breathing is visible, suddenly, and Chuck's not sure if it was before. His chest rises and falls under his gray sweatshirt. He reverse-nods past Chuck, an inclination of the chin.

Chuck turns. He falters. Turns back toward Nate, but Nate is already coming toward him, swiveling his shoulder so they don't brush, and pushing the basketball against Chuck's torso with finality.

" _Hey._ " The second time Nate says it, it's nothing more than a growl.

xii.

 _Monday, January 21_

Blair can't get away from herself.

Everywhere she looks, there's a grinning, or smirking, or pensively beautiful Blair Waldorf gazing expectantly back at her.

There she is on the internet, and not even just on the gossip rags anymore- who would have thought she'd ever long for those days- but on virtually every media site, alongside _his_ mug shot (a few of the outlets use a nicer picture of him in a scarf and peacoat from several years ago, where he looks handsome and wholesome, but most of them have enough sense to remind the general public that he was in fact a violent rapist and murderer); on the cover of the magazines that she insists Dorota not hide from her, prompting much hand-wringing and spluttering from her mother, and more velveteen reasonings from her father; and on television, on every entertainment network, though the mainstream news channels lose interest after a few days.

Which is something to give thanks for, she supposes.

Oh, the irony: Blair Waldorf, Silver Linings Queen.

An animated turning of newspaper pages on E! News reruns the Night Out With feature that she once so longed for, planned for, coveted and reveled in, and that's now come back to haunt her: resplendent Blair, looking virginal in ivory cashmere, perched cross-legged on this very bed, in this very room.

 _Waldorf's bedroom in her family's generational Upper East Side penthouse is fit for royalty, the walls a chic cornflower blue reminiscent of the taste of Marie Antoinette, with nods to all manner of vintage fashion, taste and society._

She complained to Serena afterward that she'd clarified at least four times that her walls were _French_ blue, not _cornflower_ blue. Who on earth would want bedroom walls in a shade called _cornflower_ , she'd demanded when the article finally did run, irked that the reporter had not heeded her insistence.

Serena had laughed, eyes sparkling, while they sipped fresh-squeezed orange juice, a copy in each of their hands, also on this very bed.

Blair smiles now, careful as her stitches have just come out, unconsciously touching at her lower lip to make sure, again, that it won't split back open.

She's had almost no trouble breathing the last few days, now that she's observing bed rest the way she was meant to from the beginning, and now that her torso is wrapped, and now that she's eating an extra serving of protein with every meal.

And the nightmares…

Well.

The worst one, she jokes to Chuck on the phone that night when he tentatively asks her if she's been sleeping well the last few days (because he knows she did on Friday, because he was there), is the dozens of doe-eyed, satin-haired brunettes that seem to reflect back at her from every medium.

He falters when she says that.

Oh, wait, she teases; that's real.

xiii.

 _Sunday, January 20_

The young man- his name is Carlos Metsulas, his assistant Ellen has reminded him- shifts nervously in front of his desk.

He's in his Sunday best, clean-shaven, his blazer pressed, close-cropped hair combed neatly, and smelling of aftershave.

He seems to think he's being fired, even after Bart tells him he's not.

"I'm not sure I understand, sir," he says apologetically, looking at the check in his hand. The check is for two hundred thousand dollars, nearly three years' salary at the job Carlos has worked for close to a decade. He glances around, like he's waiting for The Palace's personnel manager to come out from behind a curtain and translate what's happening.

"I want you to know how deeply the management of this hotel appreciates your attention to detail, especially in your recent duties, and how much we value you."

The lingering backwards glance at the guest in 1712 who ordered room service at 4 AM…

"You're worth a great deal to not only The Palace Hotel, but to Bass Industries more broadly, and your sound judgment has provided a profound benefit to many, me and my family included."

…the hot-footed approach to the concierge desk, where Kathryn was just about to take her first sip from a fresh cup of coffee, looking up with a polite smile as he hurried across the lobby…

"So now I hope you'll take your family on a wonderful vacation, spend a month or two abroad, whatever you want- and when you return, I hope you'll stay with us for many years to come."

…the passing back and forth of the phone receiver as they talked with the NYPD, coffee cooling next to Kathryn's keyboard.

"And continue exercising your sound judgment on behalf of The Palace Hotel, your colleagues, my family and me."

Mr. Metsulas' eyes are round and disbelieving. He stammers gratitude on gratitude, until Bart stops him with a polite nod, a diplomatic smile.

"Please be in touch with Xavier when you wish to return to work. And enjoy yourself, Carlos."

xiv.

 _Wednesday, January 23_

" _Hey._ "

Chuck is holding the basketball loosely against his stomach, breath coming out in delicate white mist, as he watches Nate stalk off the court.

The paparazzi is one they've seen before, maybe around thirty years old, about Chuck's height, and thin. He's bundled in a knitted cap and plush-lined coat, fingerless gloves gripping his camera, which he still has aimed at Nate. He was half-hidden by a tree, peeking around the corner with his lens trained on the boys as they shot around, out of earshot but clicking his shutter enough times to sell the spread of _Nate Archibald works out his grief over girlfriend Blair Waldorf's tribulations at basketball court on Upper East Side_ for somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty five thousand dollars.

"Any statement you want to give?"

Because if he gets Nate to actually comment, the market rate for the package just doubled.

"Yeah," Nate says, without breaking stride, "I do."

And the paparazzi starts to back away, then, but it's too late.

"You want a statement?"

Nate reaches out, grabs a fistful of plush-lined flannel, and yanks the guy close. "My statement is if you don't leave me the _fuck_ alone I'll mess you up worse than that guy messed up Blair. You understand me?"

Chuck can't hear his words, but he takes a halting step toward them. "Nate…"

The paparazzi blinks, putting on a brave face that Nate knows because he's applied it once or twice himself. "Archibald the White Knight," he says, and adjusts his camera where it's now pressed into his chest, maybe auto-focusing the lens.

Nate chuckles, and loosens his grip. The paparazzi steps back and opens his mouth to say something else. He's miscalculated.

Badly.

With impressive speed, Nate's fist catches him across the jaw, and he's leveled with one punch. Nate stands still over him.

Chuck breathes out, unconsciously bringing the basketball closer to his body, white mist clouding his vision for a second before it dissipates, and then he sees Nate bend over and yank the guy up, camera lurching on its strap around his neck, and set him on his feet, and then he winds up-

And hits him again.

"Nate," Chuck says, louder, his heart starting to pound.

The paparazzi yelps, tripping to the ground, blood pouring from his nose, and covers his face with his hands.

Nate's voice crackles to Chuck, but he can't understand what he's saying to the guy.

A third punch, this one to the paparazzi's stomach, knocks the wind out of him as he squirms under broader, taller, more handsome and powerful Nate; All-American Athlete Nate, New York's Prince Nate, Nate the Vanderbilt Heir, who's pummeling him like a street fighter as he tries to get away.

Chuck sees blood on the sidewalk as Nate lands another punch, its target out of sight but seemingly on the side of the paparazzi's face, and he drops the basketball and goes after them. " _Nate_!"

As he gets closer, he hears what Nate is saying.

"You want a statement? Huh?"

His knees are on either side of the guy's legs.

"I was a fucking _terrible_ boyfriend. I don't deserve to breathe the same _air_ as her." And he hits the guy in the stomach again, causing him to gasp and heave like he's going to vomit.

The guy twists to the side as Chuck approaches, and his heart lurches: Nate appears to have broken his nose and split open both his jaw and cheekbone.

"Nate- Nate- "

Nate surely hears him, but redoubles and hits the guy underneath him again. "You want to know," he seethes, "what that guy _really_ did to her?"

And Chuck can't know exactly what he's seeing, can't know he's seeing the way Blair backed away from him, that night when she told him to come in because she thought he was Dorota, and she was changing, and he saw- bloody purple, damaged tissue and broken bones on her torso, and her leg, those horrible black letters, and the way she quavered and begged him to get out, pressing herself backward against her bathroom door, putting as much distance between herself and him as she could—

But Chuck could guess, and guess correctly, that the word WHORE is beating in Nate's mind with every fistfall.

"You want to know?" Nate says again, rearing up on his knees, staring down at the bloody face of the paparazzi.

 _I'd like to break a few of_ his _bones._

He pulls his elbow back again; the paparazzi struggles to get his hands up in front of his face; Chuck gets there in time, and he's dragging Nate backward by both shoulders.

"Come on. _Nate._ " He hauls him to standing, basketball bounces echoing in his ears, but Nate turns and shoves him away, getting blood on his shirt in the meantime.

"You want to know?" Nate half-shouts at the guy, but he's rasping and raw, and closes in on the form that scrambles to get its bearings, to stand up, to flee.

But fails, because Nate has knocked him in the head and he's dazed.

Chuck realizes, in horror, that Nate's about to kick the guy in the ribs.

He sees Blair on the hospital bed, yelping and writhing, _ribs seven and eight -_

He rushes Nate from the side and knocks him down. "Stop it," he whispers hotly. " _Stop._ "

The look in Nate's eyes when their gazes meet shuts him up.

For a second, he's sure Nate is about to break his jaw.

Then Nate blinks, looks around quickly, swallows.

And from behind him, Arthur materializes. The limo is waiting just up the block; neither of them saw it approach.

"Mr. Archibald, if you'll please come with me," Arthur suggests with quiet urgency that leaves no room for argument, hooking his arms under Nate's and hoisting him to his feet, blinking and stumbling, one hand bloody and with a red spatter on his sweatshirt.

Chuck reaches out a shaky hand and helps the paparazzi up.

"How much?" he says when he finds his voice.

"What?"

The guy is bleeding. There's blood in his mouth from his split lip- is his jaw broken?- and it's mixing with the blood that's pouring from his nose, tinging his teeth yellow, washed in dark red.

Arthur has tucked Nate into the back door of the limo and approaches, again, withdrawing something from his inside breast pocket and handing it over to Chuck, who stands panting at the same rate as the bloodied photographer on the sidewalk, a pace away from the bloodstain.

"How much?" he says again. He nods at the guy's chest, noticing the blood on his own shirt as he does so. "For the camera, too."

He takes his checkbook and the pen from Arthur.

When he slides into the limo, camera with shots of him and his best friend playing basketball like they're eight years old again cradled tenderly in both hands- he has no idea how to hold a camera- Nate is crying.

His head is in his hands, and he's crying real tears.

The knuckles that face toward Chuck are ripped open; Nate's fist must have glanced off the guy's face on one of the blows and skidded across the pavement. It's dirty and bleeding in earnest.

The limo turns a corner and they're headed downtown, toward the Archibald townhouse. Chuck didn't even have to tell Arthur that Nate wouldn't be accompanying them back to The Palace.

He reaches over into a compartment near the bar- in Nate's line of sight, although Nate doesn't even register his presence- and plucks a hand towel from a stack of clean white squares. He holds it up to Nate's bloody knuckles, his mind's eye flashing back to the blood spatters on the wall of his own suite when he split his knuckles in a similar way, _oh, my God; oh my God_ \- and the way Nate's eyes traveled over the stains, to Chuck's heaving shoulders, and the perfunctory nod.

 _Me, too._

Chuck closes his eyes briefly, then gently removes Nate's hand from the side of his head and drapes the towel over it, watching as the blood soaks through the white linen almost immediately.

Nate squeezes his eyes shut, tears trickling down his cheeks, and lets out a sob. A lump rises in Chuck's throat to match.

They're a few blocks from Nate's house when the blonde turns to Chuck, head still sunk into one hand, and with raw, red eyes, whispers to Chuck in wonder:

"I only meant to hit him once."


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Hello, hello, and happy holidays! I am pleased to bring you our next installment. =D**

 **Thank you so, so much to everyone who has favorited, followed, and reviewed! I seriously flail with joy at each notification, so I can't thank you enough for making my day every single time. It's the best holiday gift a writer could ask for! =D**

i.

 _No._

 _She hasn't in- months. A month and a half. Since Thanksgiving. No. no, no._

 _No._

 _And not because she's had to stop herself. Not because she's been disciplined. It's because she hasn't wanted to; because it didn't cross her mind. Because she felt good, she felt beautiful and wanted, and desirable, without it._

 _It's the longest she's gone without needing to struggle against her urge to do it._

 _She's gripping both sides of the faucet hard enough that the pinwheel-shaped polished steel handles are leaving pink teeth marks on her palms. Lips pursed, she exhales out, slowly, the steadiness of her breath interrupted when she jumps as someone knocks. "Just a minute," she calls, lightly, eyes never leaving the mirror._

" _Sorry!" The woman's voice on the other side seems to fade even over two syllables._

 _She looks at her face, appraising every angle, every plane, the pillow of her lips, the sweep of her cheekbones, the arch of her hairline as she shakes her head and settles her hair behind both shoulders._

 _She hears it then, as clear as if he were in the room with her:_ Waldorf. You're looking particularly luminous today.

 _She glares at herself in the mirror. Those aren't tears. The lights in here are hurting her eyes._

 _Drifting to a stop, two textbooks cradled in her arm, students jostling around them in both directions. She could feel, can feel again now – goosebumps kissing their way up her ribs._

 _He turned, they both did, and the babbling brook of navy blazers and striped ties ebbed and flowed around them. Just exchanging pleasantries._

 _No secrets in these eyes._

 _His smirk deepened._

New moisturizer?

 _She squeezes her eyes shut, because her nose is growing pink and she's not going to cry again. But her body betrays her and a few tears slip from her eyes. She grips the faucet harder – she needs to get back out there and make conversation – but she can't stop the flood now: a kiss on her forehead, thumb having drifted to a rest on the rim of her ear, fingers tangled in her hair; drifting comfortably to consciousness to find, as though this is their hundredth time like this, his head cradled on her shoulder, his forehead snugly at the juncture of her collarbone and neck; and, as her stomach lurches of its very own accord – plausible deniability, her brain justifies as an aside – and she flips the water on, both taps, full force, the sudden spray not quite harsh enough against the beautiful, untouched white of the sink to drown it out: All yours._

 _She turns away from her pink nose and wet cheeks, gathering her hair into one fist._

 _It's a good thing she left her coat at the table, along with her empty wine glass and full second cabernet._

 _Those billowing sleeves are better left out of this._

ii.

 _Saturday, January 26_

Jenny's eyes are wide with barely-contained amusement. Her mouth is trying to twist into a wry smile, but it's like her facial muscles don't quite believe it. Like there must be some mistake.

The hand that holds out the envelope is steady.

"What?" He says again, after a five-second stare-down.

"Open it," she says, smile about to burst through.

He marks his spot in his book with his thumb and reaches for the envelope with the other hand. She snatches it just out of his reach a moment before he touches it.

He opens his mouth, a silent chuckle, and rolls his eyes.

"I just want to make sure you're emotionally prepared for this," she teases, passing it behind her back into her other hand and stretching to keep it away as his interest piques and he grabs for it.

"This better be good," Dan says, getting to his feet and plucking it before she can get away.

She watches for his reaction, and she's not disappointed. His eyes light up when he sees the handwritten address, his name scrawled in graceful black across the front, and the official, and not mass-printed, return label in the top left corner.

He straightens, drawing the envelope back like he wants to make sure he's reading it right.

"Oh, my God," he murmurs. He looks up at her. "Conde Nast?"

Grin spreading, Jenny nods.

"Oh, my _God_ ," he murmurs again, and then tears into the envelope. "They must have- someone must have read my- something—or figured-"

She's not listening: she knows what's in the envelope, knew it as soon as she pulled it from their box downstairs. It's square; it's firm, like heavy cardstock; and it's handwritten.

He stops as soon as he's gotten it out of the envelope. "What…."

She bounces onto her toes, then hops in the air, twice. "Dan," she all but squeals. "It's an invitation to the Met Valentine's Day Gala."

His eyes rise slowly to meet hers. He blinks.

"Gala," he repeats.

Blue eyes sparkle back at him. "I can't believe you got your own invitation. Penelope and the rest of the girls got theirs yesterday- by _courier_ \- I guess yours took an extra day because…"

Well, because the courier probably got confused by the Brooklyn address and went back to the office to double-check.

Dan's brow furrows. "Why would I be invited to the…" he shakes his head. "Lily, I guess."

Jenny snorts. "I mean, yeah. Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn didn't get invited to a fashion gala at the Met because of his street style." She nudges his foot with hers, as if trying to prod the appropriate reaction out of him. "It's a big deal to get invited to that, Dan. Seriously." And plucks it back out of his fingers. "We should frame it." She turns away, gloating, as though the invitation is for her and she's about to do just that.

iii.

"Ha," Blair half-murmurs, half-laughs into the receiver, sleepy and glowing from her shower, wet hair in a nondescript heap on her pillow. "Sounds like my mother."

He shakes his head. "Could have easily emailed me himself. But no. From Ellen James, to Chuck Bass."

"But how often does your father ask you to dinner?"

The pause while he thinks it over burns through thoughtful and into embarrassing. "The last time was… I think I was sixteen."

Blair bites too hard on the side of her lip that's still healing, and stifles a squeak. "So," she rejoins, trying to keep her tone light- she hadn't realized Bart was quite _that_ absentee- "one can't expect him to change his spots so quickly, can one?"

"One cannot," he confirms.

She twists the ringlets of the phone cord in her fingers, cradling the receiver against her shoulder. "Did you get any other invitation today?"

"Met Gala? Yes. You?" He glances at it, where it lies, unopened, past the Scotch he poured himself but hasn't touched yet.

Eyes drifting closed, her lips curve into a smile that he'd be proud of if he could see it – cherubic and toxic all at once. "Against my mother's express orders, yes, I did."

He smirks, unbeknownstedly matching her. "Well, one can't expect to effectively enforce restrictions from Paris, can one?"

She sighs, the picture of contentment. "One cannot. Although apparently, one does."

Luckily, Dorota's loyalties are right where they should be.

"D'you think…" he falters. "Will you go?"

"I don't know."

It's quick enough that he knows it's a prepared answer. It's what she's decided to say if anyone asks.

"Maybe things will have died down by then," he offers.

"Only to whip back into a tornado when The Waldorf Recluse makes her society comeback. With no Archibald on her arm," she adds, and he notes with what should not be a pang of pleasure (but is) how her voice drips sarcasm.

"You could go with Serena, as a pair. Arrive together, leave together. You don't have to talk to a guy all night," he points out.

She eases onto her side, free hand searching the cool emptiness of the mattress beside her.

Searching.

"Except you," she teases.

"I'm not a guy," he retorts. "I'm Chuck Bass."

Her laughter is so easy. It's just like before. When she was Nate's girl and the first to RSVP for society events, when she glided through public life, snickering with him in a corner here or there. It's just like that.

He doesn't see her smile fade when her fingertips find what she's looking for. "Serena will probably be going with Humphrey, anyway."

"She'd leave him at home in a second if you wanted to go together." He picks up his glass from the counter and heads for his bed.

"But just picture it: Brooklyn in a set of Armani tails."

He chuckles through a sip of Scotch. "That'll be the day."

"Chuck," she says suddenly, and he can hear the frown in her voice.

"Speaking."

There's a pause, and a short, harsh sigh. "What do you think Bart wants?"

"Probably to reduce my ascot allowance."

"I'm serious."

"I…" He shrugs, pulling back the comforter. "I don't know. If he was pissed about something, he'd come here and give me a few choruses of 'Just When I Thought You Couldn't Disappoint Me More.' Unless he wants to blindside me with something. I haven't spent that much time thinking about it."

A lie: his heart sank as he replied to Ellen that, yes, he was free on Monday night, and that he'd be there, and hasn't fully rebounded.

Such is the life of children unable to gain their parents' approval. They both know it.

She sidesteps the deception.

"You don't think he… knows." It's barely above a whisper. "Do you?"

At first, he thinks she means, _about us_. That Bart knows; that Gossip Girl sent him an email, personally; that Serena spilled the beans to Lily and Lily whispered it in his ear, though why it chills him that his father could know about Blair, probably the most upstanding girl he's ever been involved with, he's not sure.

Then he realizes that she means _about the revolver_.

"No. Kathryn- the night manager- erased the surveillance footage right after. She played it off like a glitch in the system. He told us about it himself."

"No one else knows that could have told him?" she persists.

The image of Serena lunging at the narrowing space between the doors of the penthouse elevator flashes through his mind.

"The circle's closed."

Erik's watchful gaze sliding back toward the television when he came into the room afterward.

"And anyway, I don't think he'd be showing his appreciation for me taking his handgun to…" He pauses and simply skips the next few words. "By scheduling a father-son dinner."

"No," she agrees. "I guess not. Well, I hope the ascot allowance doesn't affect your wardrobe selection process for the gala."

"I can always donate a kidney," he reasons, eyes crinkling when her laugh bubbles against his ear.

A comfortable silence falls, and he has to convince himself to bring it up again.

"It's none of anyone's business if you do or don't go to the gala, and it's none of anyone's business if you go alone, you know."

"I know. I just don't want more questions. And not that Nate even cares…"

This stabs at him, which is surprising. "Nate cares."

She'd probably be surprised at how true this is.

"No, I mean, not that Nate cares about what anyone says, one way or the other, but if we were both there and not together, it would just stir up more headlines." Her voice cracks, just a hair, and then stiffens: "And I can't do more headlines."

"It's your life. People aren't entitled to know if you have a boyfriend."

She chuckles again, sadly. "They're just entitled to know the last person who was inside me, I guess."

He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a long drink of Scotch. Holds the glass against his temple. "You should do whatever you want."

"Maybe I'll go as a nondescript blonde."

"Do you have a dress already?"

He hears the rustling of her duvet, like she's rolling over, sitting up.

"A whole closetful."

And the distinctive sound of a yank on the chain of her bedside lamp: sleeping in the dark tonight, he notes.

She exhales as she sinks back into her pillows: "I used to be Blair Waldorf."

He thinks she's about to say she's going to bed, but instead she says, "so – what color do you think I should paint my bedroom walls?"

iv.

 _Sunday, January 27_

Serena- and this does surprise him- is almost like a different person once he presents her with his invitation to the gala.

"Oh my God!" she squeals, mouth full of croissant, dropping half of it onto her lap and carefully dusting her fingertips on her napkin before reaching for the marbled ivory square. She inspects it enthusiastically, like she didn't get a nearly-identical one herself.

"'Daniel Humphrey,'" she reads in a pompous baritone, "'is cordially invited- '"

" _Cordially_ ," he emphasizes, holding up his coffee cup when the waitress approaches with a gleaming silver carafe. She looks confused; her patrons generally don't hold out their coffee cups like truckers at an interstate diner. She tops off Serena's afterward, waiting as it is on its saucer.

"Well." Serena mock-pouts as he takes a bigger-than-polite gulp. "Now that you're a big famous socialite, you can bring a plus one to this thing. Have you thought about who to ask?"

She bats her eyelashes.

He's suddenly leaning forward, fingertips brushing her hair back, kissing her on the mouth. She giggles against his lips.

"I thought," he says as they separate, "I might bring the most beautiful girl on earth."

"Bar Refaeli? I think she already has a date," she teases.

"Damn." He reaches for his coffee cup. "Back to the drawing board."

Serena picks up her fork and idly spears some avocado. "Give it some more thought," she suggests with a lopsided grin, the exact face that made him fall in love with her. The face that confirms she has no idea how beautiful and perfect she is. "You might think of someone else worthy of being on your arm."

Their eyes meet, mutually sparkling, and he squeezes her knee under the table.

"In all seriousness, though, isn't this invitation gorgeous? There's something different about all of them. One year the names were tipped in pearl powder or something. This year they're hand-painted. My mom saves all the society invitations, but the Met ones are always the nicest." Her words slow as she finishes the sentence. She's looking over his shoulder, and then, without preamble: "Nate's here."

He looks behind him. Nate looks like someone just ran over his dog. He's wearing one glove and carrying the other; three quarters of his scarf is dangling down his torso, with the other quarter hanging onto his opposite shoulder for dear life. His shirt is untucked and wrinkled at the hem. He's glancing around, scanning the faces of the diners at Dais.

"Should we ask him to…"

He doesn't even have time to beat her to it when Nate spots them and waves hello.

"Hey, you two," he says as he makes his way over, but his eyes don't even come to rest on them.

"Good morning," Serena replies.

"Hey, man." Dan can't help it; he glances back and forth between them.

Nate pulls out his phone. "Have you seen…"

"Chuck," Serena supplies, with an inclination of her chin.

Chuck is immaculately dressed, in sharp contrast with Nate, who looks the way Chuck looks on mornings when he hasn't been home all night. His usually languid pace is faster than normal. His smile is wide. "Nathaniel. Sister." He blinks. "Humphrey."

"Out of curiosity, do you know my first name?" Dan tilts his head.

Chuck doesn't spare him a glance. "Derek, right?"

"Have you talked to Blair?" Serena pipes up, urgency creeping into her like she's just realized she slept through her alarm clock.

Nate takes a deep breath, and shakes his head minutely. "I…"

"No more than you have, I'm sure," Chuck cuts him off. "If you'll both excuse us, Mr. Archibald and I have some routine business matters to discuss."

"Dealer schedules and such?" Serena's tone is bored, but she's watching them closely: Chuck's hand on Nate's shoulder; Nate's rapid blinking.

"And such." He gives a diplomatic nod. Chuck the Statesman. "Nathaniel, our corner booth awaits."

Nate turns. Chuck tugs at his bowtie- 11 AM on a Sunday, no occasion- and smiles. "Celia. Randolph."

Serena manages to stifle her laughter until he's out of earshot. "I'm not surprised he knows my middle name, but yours?"

"Impressive," Dan agrees, holding out his cup for the waitress as she draws near again.

Chuck and Nate's corner booth is mostly obscured by a potted magnolia tree, but they're in Serena's line of sight. And so it is that she tracks them out of the corner of one eye, and sees that Chuck drains two ice waters and barely touches his meal; and that after a tense, rapid-fire exchange, Nate wolfs down a stack of pancakes, eyes trained on his plate.

v.

" _So, like, what, I'm just supposed to pretend?"_

 _She lifts one shoulder, tiredly._

" _Just… maybe don't indicate one way or the other for a while. Until things die down."_

 _He's agitated. She can see it in the way he's blinking: fast, eyes darting all over, from her to the ceiling to the floor._

" _I mean, do you think I'm just, like, out there talking to paparazzi or something?"_

 _She tenses a little at his tone, and the oddly accusatory question. She didn't expect he'd be so affronted. "No, of course not. I just meant… look," she sighs, hand passing over her eyebrows, forehead, hairline, "I think we could both do with less attention from the media right now, don't you? I mean, not just us, but both our families. And given they seem to think we're this…"_

 _Swallow._

" _Perfect couple, and we…" she closes her eyes. "Obviously aren't, it would shake the hornet's nest and probably cost us a few more weeks of being scrutinized if we let on about that right now."_

 _He stares at her._

" _Is this about the gala?"_

 _He knows her well enough to know she'd be thinking about how it would look if they were or weren't together there. Or at least, his mother does, and asked him twice last night if he thought Blair would go, and twice more if he didn't think he should ask to escort her, as her first social appearance, so she wouldn't have to go through it alone, even if- of course, of course, she understands, they're just friends now._

" _It's about the whole thing." She looks down at her lap. "Can you just please do me this favor? I realize someone else might blow the cover, but I'm hoping interest will die down before that happens and things can go back to…"_

 _She blinks miserably._

" _Blair, I can't…" he swallows against the rush of frustration he doesn't really understand. "I can't pretend to be something I'm not. This great boyfriend. I…" he shakes his head._

" _You were," she whispers._

" _Sh-" he silences himself and bites his lip. Blair glances up in alarm, wondering if he was about to tell her to shut up._

" _This doesn't have anything to do with us or who did what to whom," she says. "I'm trying to help us both here. Most of the country already knows I was…"_

 _His nostrils flare._

" _If it comes out that we're not together, and then word is out and someone else gives a tip, suddenly it's going to be on all the tabloid sites that I was publicly known as this promiscuous…" she waves a hand. "Who lost my virginity in the back of a limo. Then I'm notorious for a whole set of different reasons. If we can just keep the lid on long enough for the interest to die down…"_

 _She looks at him pleadingly._

" _Limo?" he echoes. The word is like a gunshot._

 _And it hangs in the air between them._

 _It takes several seconds for her overstatement to sink in. Her lips part, aghast. "You didn't know?"_

 _Silence lingers again._

 _At length, Nate swallows and licks his lips._

" _I won't say anything. I'll just play along. You're right," he says, robotically._

" _Nate, I'm so sorry."_

 _He exhales, slowly, eyes on the floor. "I'm sorry, too, but I honestly don't even know who's apologizing for what anymore."_

" _Do whatever you need to do," she murmurs. "I'll deal with it."_

 _She always has._

" _I've got your back, Waldorf." He reaches for her hand, tiredly, and they shake, avoiding each other's eyes._

 _When she hears the elevator ding closed in the foyer below, she feels relief._

vi.

 _Monday, January 28_

He wears a navy suit with sage pinstripes and an ivory Oxford with hunter pinstripes- green paisley pocket square- for dinner with his father.

Bart is waiting for him at the elevator, though he clearly arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early. Chuck glances around, looking for the reason his father would delay sitting down at a table to wait for him, but Bart doesn't appear to be otherwise engaged.

"Hello," his father greets him, with a quick clasp in greeting. "You're early."

He's shrugging out of his overcoat, chocolate wool with teal silk lining, and handing it to the hostess, who murmurs an apology when her fingers graze his as she takes it. "Am I?"

"Yes," Bart says without checking his watch.

On their way to the table, Bart spots an acquaintance, and to Chuck's sharp surprise, his father puts his hand on his shoulder to stop him from going ahead to the table and leaving Bart to exchange pleasantries.

He prods him ever so slightly forward, and Chuck steps up to the table.

"Reginald. You remember my son Charles?"

"Of course," Reginald beams from behind Gucci spectacles. It's nonsense. Chuck has never met this man before in his life, and they all know it. "How have you been, my boy? Where are you now in school?"

"Wading my way through junior year at St. Jude's," Chuck replies smoothly, giving the two-handed handshake the way his father does when he really cares about someone's favor.

Reginald nods approvingly. "Fine school. Fine, fine school. When you're ready to compare the merits of the Ivies, give me a call. Your father here is biased," he mock-confides, holding one hand up to his mouth as though to stop Bart hearing.

Bart chuckles good-naturedly. "I'll send him your way," he promises. "Enjoy your meal."

"Great to see you again," Chuck adds, slightly for his own pleasure.

When they're seated, napkins across their laps, Bart asks if he'd like a glass of wine, and he politely declines, waiting for the punchline.

His father shrugs and reaches for the raw bar menu. "Suit yourself," he says, and then: "What looks good? I'm in the mood for a tuna tartare."

vii.

She's struggling to stay awake. Today she started physical therapy and she's embarrassed to admit it, but her ribs are aching from the exertion.

She tilts her head back- she still has to sleep propped almost upright on pillows- and stares at her ceiling.

Nothing's wrong; they're probably talking about lapel sizes or their mutual dislike of the Humphreys or something.

They were supposed to meet for dinner three hours ago.

She's reached for the receiver twice, and stopped herself.

Eventually she dozes, waking with a start for no reason at all, to a racing heart.

The light is still on. Her books are still stacked inside her locked doors.

Everything is fine. She'd just sleep better knowing why his father asked him to go to dinner, that's all.

Tonight is the first night in a few days she's needed the book stacks to feel safe, but that's normal, to go back and forth. She'll grow out of it soon. Hopefully, anyway; it's a painstaking process, stacking the books one by one without twisting the wrong way.

viii.

He's hovered above "Send" on her name twice, but reason tells him that it's too late to call.

He reaches into his pocket for his wallet, and when he places the side with the key card against his electronic lock, a business card flutters to the floor.

He picks it up and turns it over as he badges in.

"Octavia" in feminine script, and a phone number.

He kicks the lever to open his trash bin and drops it in without a second glance; his eyes are rooted on "Blair – Home."

Thumb floating again above the green button, reason finally wins. He'll talk to her tomorrow. She's probably peacefully sleeping by now; he can't risk ruining that.

ix.

 _Tuesday, January 29_

Serena's smile is as warm and confident as it's always been. Her face betrays none of the reality that she's come to the Waldorfs' completely uninvited and is hoping against hope that she won't be turned away.

Luckily, her casual demeanor as she gestures vaguely toward the sky ("here to see Blair" in a confidential tone) lets her slide past the doorman; she's in the penthouse before anyone has time to fact-check, even were they so inclined, which she's reasonably sure they aren't.

Dorota isn't in the kitchen, and so there's no one to stop her as she hurries up the stairs and knocks.

"Blair?"

There's a pause that she wishes she didn't understand so well when Blair's non-drowsy voice comes back to her: "Serena?"

"It's me," she confirms, tone bright.

Another pause.

"Can I come in?" Serena tries again.

A third pause.

"Sure," Blair says.

Her excitement deflated, she steps inside, nonetheless determined to sparkle for her best friend.

"Is everything okay?" Blair asks at once.

"Y- yes." Serena blinks. She's almost forgotten that Blair's hair is blonde; it's been nearly a week since she's seen her. Her friend's face looks different, too. Her eyes look larger. Her cheekbones look sharper. Her shoulders, stiff inside a loose scoopneck sweater, look more pronounced. "How about you?"

Blair licks her lips. "As fine as fine can be," she offers, frugally.

Serena gestures to the corner of Blair's bed. "Can I sit?"

Blair appears to consider it before nodding.

Shrugging out of her coat and slipping off her shoes- no time for that in the foyer, in case Dorota caught her and prevented her from getting up here- Serena sinks down on top of the duvet cover. "So. Fashion week starts on Friday," she points out.

Blair's eyes flit down, and she catches herself and forces them back up. "Yes. Kickoff parties and all. My mother will be back to get ready for her show."

Serena's smile widens. "Are you excited?" Blair falters, and Serena amends: "Do you think you'll want to go to any of the shows?"

Lips part. "I haven't really thought about it."

Serena visibly does not believe her, but dutifully avoids the topic. "If you want to go to any, just let me know. I'd love to go with you. Be your date," she teases.

Blair smiles, a fond smile. "I'll definitely let you know."

Encouraged, Serena glances around. "Did you get your invitation to the gala?" She doesn't notice that Blair's gaze doesn't move.

"I did. I haven't decided anything about that, yet, either."

"Can I see? They're so pretty- Dan actually got one addressed to himself, which is crazy- I knew my mom was trying to show her support after Cotillion, but to actually get him added to the guest list was a great surprise…"

She's looking around, on Blair's vanity, her dresser, her nightstand, trying to spy the invitation.

"I had Dorota put it away somewhere," Blair preempts, somewhat curtly. Serena looks at her, and she smiles a little. "For safekeeping. I'm… not sure if I want to go yet."

"Right. Of course. Maybe wait to see if things die down?"

"Exactly."

"I totally understand." Serena is still looking at her, longer than Blair is comfortable being looked at now.

She starts to ramble. "I'm hoping fashion week will take up all the media's bandwidth, and there's bound to be some scandal or a show will be a disaster and everyone will focus on that, and maybe if that happens, I can go into the gala after the red carpet part is over to avoid being on camera…" she trails off, lifting both shoulders listlessly. Even to her own ears, she's speaking a foreign language: avoiding cameras, for God's sake.

"I know you're under a lot of pressure," Serena murmurs. "I mean, it's not even practical to leave your house yet. I can only imagine what that must be like."

"Yeah."

Serena clears her throat absently, pressing one palm into the mattress and shifting her weight. "Blair?"

Brown eyes meet blue. "Mm?"

"You're not… you didn't relapse, did you?"

Blair stares at her for a moment, like she can't figure out what Serena means, and then lets out a surprised bark of dry laughter. She presses the heel of her hand against her side, frowning at her own lack of care. "No."

Serena doesn't look away. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. Believe me. There's not enough room for that much sickness in one person. I've officially traded that in for…" she gestures vaguely over her body. "This."

There's an awkward silence as the profound sadness of Blair's self-assessment hits them both.

Now Blair a-hems. "I appreciate the concern, but I promise, there's nothing to worry about. If anything, I'm going to get fat from lying here, what with Dorota shoving an extra serving of protein on me at every meal." She rolls her eyes. "Doctor's orders."

Serena nods slowly. "If you need any help with anything…"

"I know I can always call you. Thank you." She blinks and glances at her bedside clock. "I actually have my therapist in about ten minutes, so…"

Serena straightens. "Oh- of course. Right. How is that going?"

"Second session, so it's not going much of anywhere yet." Blair's tight smile is back. "But I'm sure it will be productive. The doctor is highly recommended."

As she speaks, Serena is getting to her feet, and without warning she approaches and puts her arms around Blair, who leans into her but seems to stiffen at the same time.

"I love you," Serena whispers in her ear, and with Blair's eyes shut it jars her back to the hospital room, to the first real cry she had after it happened, to Serena's murmur and the comfort it brought her, that they were sisters and always would be and Serena was there and maybe it could all still turn out to be okay, somehow.

She opens her eyes, with effort, tears herself away from that. From then. "I love you, too," she whispers. "So much."

Serena is gone by 3:19 PM, and again Blair feels relief, and no guilt that she lied and her doctor isn't coming until 4:00.

She gets up, carefully, to call Dorota and ask for tea. She checks her reflection on her way back, tracing her collarbones and facial angles and eyes the way Serena so obviously did. She takes in her pale, dull complexion and sighs. If she was purging, she'd be glowing from perspiration due to the strain; and glowing she definitely is not.

x.

 _The first day back to school after Thanksgiving, Chuck is in the back corner of the library, the reference section where the Oxford English Dictionary and the Letters and Papers of the Anglican Kings are kept- he's texting, obviously, not actually engaging in use of the library's resources- and Blair comes sauntering down the aisle, index finger scribbled with Dewey Decimal coordinates between her second and third fingers._

" _Bass," she greets coolly, without making eye contact._

 _Head down, he watches her as she side steps along the bookshelves, "idly" playing with her hair so that it bares and then covers and then bares and then covers the back of her neck and upper spine, visible through a small keyhole in the back of her blouse._

" _Waldorf."_

 _After a moment of what they both know is faux searching, she turns to him with a forlorn expression. "I can't find the word I need to research."_

" _What word is that?"_

"' _Fisticuffs.'" She says it over her shoulder, gathering her hair in one fist again, letting it spill with a flourish this time._

" _Wish I could be of service," he says, voice low. "'Fornication'" is more my area."_

" _You're disgusting."_

 _She holds out for another few seconds, then turns and slides past him, pausing as she slides her hip against his leg- glancing down to where they touch, and using the smoothing down of her skirt where it's imperceptibly mussed as an excuse to let her fingertips linger on his thigh- and murmuring, "excuse me."_

 _She flounces away, clearly pleased with herself, and he smirks and shakes his head because she has no idea who she's dealing with._

xi.

Serena wants to ask who Blair's doctor is, so she can thoroughly Google her at home, but she can't bring herself to push when it's so painfully clear that Blair does not want her there. Her heart leaps when Blair says she loves her, too, but nothing shifts.

And she can't blame her; Serena has abandoned and betrayed her one too many times, she supposes, to be someone that can be relied upon any further. To put one's trust in Serena Van der Woodsen is to try to use a helium balloon as a paperweight.

So instead, Serena pauses in front of the doorman who let her in as she leaves the Waldorfs', and puts on her best long-suffering-best-friend smile.

"Miss Waldorf asked me to give a message to her therapist if I could catch her on the way in," she confides to him. "Have I missed her?"

"No, Miss Van der Woodsen. We're not expecting Dr. Genove until 4PM, unless her appointment time has changed?"

"Oh." She glances down, then back up, and smooths her hair behind her ear. "Then- great. We're on the same page. My message to her was that Miss Waldorf would be ready by 4PM after all." She smiles and nods once. "Thank you."

The doorman returns the gesture. "Of course."

xii.

 _After school that day, she's reading on her chaise lounge when he steps off the elevator._

 _Her head snaps up, and she pastes on a scowl even as her eyes light up._

" _What are you doing here?" she demands, getting to her feet._

 _He spreads his arms wide extravagantly, dropping his coat over the back of an armchair (Dorota is out on Monday afternoons, though he's not sure wild boars could have stopped him coming over) as he does so. "The question is, what am I not doing here. And the answer is: wasting time."_

 _She narrows her eyes, stepping closer. "Whatever you think you may have been invited for…"_

 _He puts his hands on her elbows and kisses her, warm, and she "mm"s against him._

 _When he pulls back, he whispers, "Now take off your underwear."_

" _Chuck!" she whispers, mock-affronted, and slaps his chest._

" _Blair, we need to focus on the task at hand," he lectures, walking her backward toward the wall, kissing her again and again. Her hands are fumbling for her underwear in seconds; they're on the floor without another word, and she steps out of them and against the wall as his hand finds his way under her skirt, and they don't come up for air until it's done._

 _Her lips are freezing as he steadies her, and their noses touch, and that's cold too. She's panting, her lips moving as if on delay while he presses his mouth against hers, and finally he murmurs, "I win."_

 _She wrenches her face away from his, expression twisting into a scowl. "You do not_ win _."_

 _He nuzzles his nose against hers again. "Oh, I win."_

 _She scoffs and kicks at his ankle with one bare foot. "How do you figure this is a victory for you?"_

 _He genuinely admires how she manages to be so bossy when she's in such a vulnerable, post-euphoric state. She's pink-cheeked and shimmering with resolved desire and breathless from his touch and she's somehow finding a way to put him in his place. He finds it sexy. Sexy, obviously. Not endearing._

" _Well," he reasons, the hand that's been wrapped around her waist, half-supporting her, this whole time finding its way up to her hair, which he pushes back from her face, "I've been burning for the last two hours because of you. And now," and he steps back, parting them, and swears he hears a stifled whimper in her throat, "you'll glow for the next eight hours because of me." He bends and scoops up her discarded underwear in one fluid movement, holding them up in one hand. "I'm keeping these, by the way."_

 _Her mouth drops open, but word speed is clearly not her strength at the moment, and he picks up his coat and gives her a deferential nod._

" _Waldorf. Always an unholy pleasure."_

 _She tips her head back and heaves a ragged exhale. "You make me si-iiickkkk," she teases, not bothering to hide the satisfied smile on her face._

 _He steps close, closer, right in front of her. "Actually," he whispers, close to her face, "I think I usually make you-"_

 _And she kisses him then, sweet and long, and slips her hands under his collar and then into his hair._

 _And the following morning, she appears at his door with no underwear and he feigns grief when she tells him some pervert made off with them, and they decide there's time to have sex twice before she has to meet Serena._

 _And they pass in the hall that afternoon, half-hidden smiles on their faces, and turn casually to each other in the sea of students, like two halves of a magnet. And he says, "Waldorf. You're looking particularly luminous today. New moisturizer?"_

 _Heavy-lashed eyes blink slowly back at him, and there, yes- genuine admiration for him, too._

 _Game recognizes game._

" _And you, Bass," she says softly, "look like the cat that ate the canary."_

 _His eyes crinkle with pleasure. They hold each other's gaze for a burning moment._

" _I love canaries," he says, and she holds back laughter with effort, before they slide past each other._

xiii.

Dr. Genove accepts a cup of tea this time, because she sees that her patient again has one.

"How are you feeling today, Blair?"

Blair blinks back at her.

"I'm feeling conflicted," she says quietly, and doesn't elaborate.

Dr. Genove nods, letting the moment draw out, before placing her cup of tea down on the vanity and opening her notebook.

"Can I ask why that is?"

"I received my invitation to the Met Valentine's Day Gala on Saturday."

(Well, it was couriered over Friday night, but Dorota made an attempt to follow her mother's instructions and not give it over to Blair, which lasted all of twelve hours before she came to her senses.)

The doctor nods.

"Are you feeling conflicted about whether to RSVP?"

Blair rocks her head slowly back and forth, not indicating 'no,' just that she's mulling it over. "I'm feeling conflicted about whether I can return to this world in total… yet," she adds. "Whether I can… dress up and be looked at and talked about."

"You've been under an intense amount of public pressure and scrutiny," Dr. Genove reasons. "It's certainly normal to feel hesitant about willingly entering back into the foray."

Nearly cutting her off, Blair blurts out: "That life used to be all I ever wanted- all I ever could want. Now I can't quite… picture myself there. At least not at this moment. I'm not sure when it will revert back."

She swallows.

"Or if it will."

The doctor threads her fingers together slowly, pen resting in the open spine of her notebook. "Did receiving the invitation provoke or crystallize some of these feelings, or had you been conscious of them prior?"

"Prior," Blair says, "I think, but I didn't realize how much they related to being seen publicly until the invitation came."

She reaches over to her bedside drawer and tugs it open. And lifts out the invitation, safe in its envelope.

She smiles wanly. "I've looked at it a hundred times. A few people have already asked me if I think I'll go."

Dr. Genove smiles back, warmer. "What have you told them?"

Blair shrugs. "Just that I'm not sure yet. I don't want to talk about it with my… most of my friends."

"I understand. The most important thing, Blair, is that whatever decision you make should be made regardless of public opinion. If you go, don't let it be because you're smoked out into the open. If you don't go, don't let it be because you feel shamed or afraid. Ideally, whether you go or don't go, it should be because you don't care what people think and you're doing what you want and staying true to who you are."

"I know," Blair says, voice wavering. "I just wish I had even an idea of what and who that was."

xiv.

" _That corner table looks nice." He gestures with a raise of his chin, rather than his hand, since he has his coat draped over one arm and their drinks occupying both hands._

 _She has her own coat and her wine glass, with just a few drops left, in her hands._

" _I agree," she says, voice silken, throwing him a brilliant smile over one shoulder._

 _He insists she sit against the wall, as far away from the path of the cold air when the front door opens as possible, and she graciously obliges. He sets down their drinks and hands her up into the tall chair._

 _They toast, informally, on her first sip of her second glass of red: To good health, great conversation, and New York City._

 _She's just begun answering his question about her father's areas of practice when she stops to take another sip and he places a tentative palm on the table, not quite at her forearm, but close. She glances up through her lashes._

" _I hope you don't find me too forward," he says earnestly, "but I can't help but say this. Your eyes are positively… luminous."_

 _Her smile freezes, and she forces it a little wider. "Thank you," she replies._

 _He hesitates, perhaps reading her face, perhaps thinking he's offended her._

" _I'm sorry if I've overstepped," he adds, flashing a charming, self-effacing smile. "I couldn't help myself."_

Waldorf. You're looking particularly luminous today.

" _No, no- that's," she pauses, her stomach churning, not fluttering, "that's very kind of you."_

 _She's sliding off her chair, taking care that her coat doesn't slide off with her, tucking the bell sleeves over the wooden back._

" _I'm going to use the ladies' room quickly," she says apologetically, forcing herself to meet his eyes. "Excuse me."_


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Hello again! I hope everyone's holidays are full of twinkling lights and lots of joy. =) I found some free time, so to make up for months of sparse updates, I'm delighted to deliver our next installment.**

 **Every single one of your reviews, follows and favorites fills me with glee. If writers can have holiday wishes, I very much wish that my kind anonymous reviewers would make proper accounts so I can thank them personally! =)**

 **But to everyone who lends me an ear, know that I'm filled with gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you.**

i.

 _She's sure he's glanced at her a few times, and she's taken stock out of the corner of her eye. She busies herself watching the other patrons; the bar is sparsely populated, bartender dipping in and out every few minutes, not hovering as he would if the place were more crowded. There are only a few people at tables. The murmur of conversation, the air saturated with warmth and comfort, is enough to bury her memories of the last twelve hours, even if they're in a shallow grave._

 _She feels her posture slacken and pulls herself upright._

 _Takes a deep breath, lets it go._

 _The newcomer asked for a dish of black cherries to go with his Weltevrede; the bartender provided it with a speed that surprised her. She hears, every so often, the clink of the cocktail fork against the scalloped dish._

 _Lightly, she rakes her fingers through her hair, noting in dismay that her carefully combed waves are damp. She was hardly outside when it was raining, for God's sake. Surely she can salvage-_

 _She remembers spritzing on finishing spray, misting her hair with shine, fluffing and smoothing and twisting the curls around her fingers, slipping her headband into place and checking the gold bow at her chest. Stopping home just to freshen her appearance, not for any other reason than because Waldorfs always look their best._

 _She lets her hair go. Her fingers move, instead, to toy with one floppy ear of her bow. She tugs, ever so, at the tail; like she's going to unravel the knot, let it loosen in its eyelet, and bear her throat and collarbones to be…_

 _And bites her tongue, in punishment._

 _And takes a long, slow sip of wine._

 _And glances sidelong, and catches the newcomer's gaze sliding away._

 _She smiles, vacantly, turning her head in his direction like she's looking there by coincidence. He's fairly dashing: dark brows, good bone structure, a classic haircut and impeccably dressed._

 _More deliberate, he looks over at her. Smiles at her. It reaches his eyes, warms her all over; a little thrill runs through her, tonight, of all nights, to be looked at like that._

 _His eyes drift away, and he takes a careful sip._

 _Emboldened at the admiration she knows-_ knows _\- she saw in his smile, and at the thrill that courses through her when she remembers she's Blair Waldorf, she places her fingers on the stem of her own glass, searching, searching-_

" _Black cherries?" she says, without preamble._

 _He looks back at her, pleasantly surprised._

 _Opens his mouth; stops to clear his throat._

" _They're perfect with this. From Western Cape." He gestures with one hand at his glass._

 _She blinks, smiles, tilts her head in a way that lets one glossy wave fall against her cheekbone, in a way she knows is attractive. She's practiced it in the mirror enough times._

 _He smiles perfunctorily. And checks his watch._

 _A prickle of nerves tingles inside her. The same familiar prickle that bubbled up every time Nate's eyes drifted elsewhere, attention rushing away from her like the leftover froth of a wave being pulled back into a breaker, oblivious to the pains she took to look beautiful for him, the effort she was expending trying to beguile him._

 _She hasn't felt that in a while. She's now used to feeling wanted, desired-_

And I can't see why anyone else would.

 _Her eyes fall, for a moment, just a moment, at the little stab in her chest. Her shoulders droop imperceptibly._

 _Just for a moment._

 _The heel of her hand presses into the seat of her tall chair, allowing her to shift her weight, dangling legs stretching away to anchor her, and she leans toward the newcomer._

 _Extends her hand._

" _Blair Waldorf."_

ii.

 _Tuesday, January 29_

He sounded fine when he called her this morning, but she can't deny that she's darting glances at the clock as his appointed arrival time draws near.

At his footsteps on the staircase, she exhales, slowly.

He smiles at her, a real smile, no knock necessary because she left her bedroom door open.

"So?" she prods.

"So," he drawls back, pulling out her vanity chair, and nodding toward her: "that's a stunning shade of green."

She rolls her eyes. "Dorota has surprisingly good taste in lounge clothes." When he doesn't reply at once, she shakes her head. "Bart? What happened?"

Chuck inhales through an open mouth, a deep breath, shaking his head minutely. "He wanted… well, first, to apologize."

"Apologize?"

"I was as surprised as you are."

" _Charles…" putting down his Alsace Riesling, mouth curving down at the corners in an expression that nudges Chuck in the gut- "I'm embarrassed to have to say this."_

 _A pause, a shake of the head._

" _No- I'm embarrassed to have done it at all."_

 _Blinking back at him, hand frozen on the flute of ice water halfway to his mouth._

" _Ellen brought to my attention the other morning that in all the commotion of- the last few weeks- I'd completely let your eighteenth birthday escape my notice."_

Blair stares at him, pale lips forming a small "o."

"He forgot… completely?" she asks quietly, wide eyes riveted on his face.

 _He awakes before she does, by a solid half hour, and watches the soft glow of the digital clock tick the minutes slowly by. She stirs in her sleep every few minutes, her frown barely visible in the dark, and he guesses her freshly wrapped ribs are hurting her._

 _The guy has been dead only- what- fourteen hours; he evaded Serena's net only seven hours ago. As sometimes happens after sleep, it feels like a lifetime since any of that, since he existed anywhere but inside this bed, Blair asleep in her black v-neck sweater, hair damp and fragrant, propped on pillows beside him._

 _When she does surface into the world of the waking, long after the fog of sleep has lifted from him, she turns her head and half-smiles, eyes drifting closed lazily._

 _It's the first time he's seen her relaxed since he'd-rather-not-think-of-that._

 _A minute later, she breathes in decisively through her nose and whispers, "what time is it?"_

 _He tilts his head back, checking the clock on the nightstand on his side of the bed- not that_ he _has a side of_ her _bed- and murmurs back: "12:41 AM."_

" _Mmm." She looks over at him again, eyes adjusting to the dark. "Happy birthday, Chuck Bass."_

 _He blinks, surprised._

 _She sniffs, prim. "You thought I'd forget? Give me a little credit." Light. Teasing. "It was a rape, not a lobotomy."_

 _He forces a chuckle; he knows it's a joke. He thanks her._

 _She doesn't reply, and silence falls, and he thinks she's sunk from consciousness, when she asks if he's hungry._

He shrugs. "It's not a big deal."

Her eyes shift side to side, trying to decide whether to argue, remembering the phone call they had later that night, when she asked him how he celebrated his official induction into manhood.

" _Raged like a legend," he'd replied drily, and she'd chuckled, because she knew a joke when she heard one, too._

 _But she didn't press the subject, and he was glad, because though he'd brunched with Serena and Erik, kissed Lily on the cheek, exchanged a lingering, hopeful (on his part) hello with his father, and talked to Nate on the phone that day, other than Blair, no one had remembered, except Arthur. Arthur, who hadn't taken him anywhere, but who had called to ask if he could stop by to drop something off, and showed up with two cigars and a single malt, and chocolate-covered espresso beans. They'd clinked glasses at Chuck's kitchen counter._

" _Interrupting the bender, am I?" she'd teased back._

 _He'd glanced at the small tin, nestled next to his espresso machine, still half-full of the chocolates. Arthur had stayed about thirty minutes, and silently, Chuck's heart had deflated when he'd left._

"Well," Blair presses after a minute, voice hard, "I hope he felt terrible."

"Terrible enough to ask Ellen to get me on the calendar for dinner," he observes.

She rolls her eyes again.

"Is that all?"

He shakes his head: "He said he had… some ideas for how I can start to get more involved with Bass Industries, now that I'm of age."

Her eyes brighten. "Like what?"

"Well…" he swallows and averts his eyes. "Victrola is doing quite well. The P&L is one of the best of the company's holdings, though it's a single, small venture, so that has to be taken with a grain of salt. So at least that project is off to a good start. He suggested I might start attending operational reviews and learning about the rest of the portfolio. See how it fits into-" he flips his hand- "'The Big Bass Picture.'"

 _Bart is also in the mood for oysters and a filet, rare, with a tomato basil salad._

" _We haven't spent much time together recently, Charles, and I admit that's largely my fault," he says as the waitress retreats from the table, palming the gilded spines of both their menus. "I must say, I've been very… impressed with your handling of yourself in this whole recent- business."_

 _Chuck shifts in his seat._

" _You've behaved like an adult. Jumping to your friend's aid, focusing on speeding the apprehension process. Andrew Tyler tells me you were quite insistent and, somewhat ruthlessly, focused. Lily raves about your steadfastness and discretion. Not to mention she claims you have better taste in decorating than I do."_

 _A corner of Bart's mouth twitches up in a trademark Bass smirk._

" _The Waldorfs themselves sing your praises for playing such a part in helping their daughter- I realize it was by happenstance, and not necessarily by virtue of upstanding extracurriculars, that you were the person to find her, but regardless- they feel that they owe the fact that Blair is alive to you having been the one that was there. That, if not for you, this- well- would have turned out quite differently. Eleanor has called me twice to that effect in the past week."_

 _Chuck swallows, hard, and finds his voice. "I did what anyone would have," he manages. "Blair is my… friend."_

 _His teeth catch his lower lip an instant too long on the "f" sound in "friend."_

 _Bart regards him for a moment._

 _(… 'if it were Lily?')_

" _I know she is. She has been for a long time. But that doesn't lessen the impact of your actions."_

 _Chuck manages to avoid clenching his jaws, with effort, at the unintended entendre._

" _You seem to have done some growing up when I haven't been looking, and to that end, I think you've proven you're ready to be brought closer to the nucleus of the empire." They both accept the salads the waitress places in front of them; Chuck's is watercress and artichoke. "You've shown how you handle situations, even those with extraordinarily difficult circumstances, where the outcome matters to you. I'm not saying you'll be attending board meetings, but the level of responsibility and confidentiality required to be brought under the tent is something I no longer have concerns about you embodying."_

 _It's the closest thing to a compliment Bart has paid him in recent memory. If only his stomach wasn't so sour at the backstory that his father doesn't know exists._

" _Thank you, sir," he says, stiffly, trying to sound sincere. "I'll do my best to show you I'm worthy of your confidence."_

 _Bart swirls his Riesling thoughtfully. "When I first started out," he says, slowly, like he's dredging up each word from memory, "I was nothing- no family money to speak of, no pedigree to gain access to the elite people who had it, no… nothing, really, except my instincts and drive. It was an uphill battle to get my first equity investor, and the next, and the next. There was very little for anyone to bet on."_

 _For a moment, trailed off into silence, candlelight flickering on the slack lines of Bart's face, Chuck thinks suddenly that his father looks like an old man. An old man who has been- well, not quite alone, but adrift- for nearly eighteen years._

 _Then he looks back up, and again he is Bart Bass, King of Manhattan._

" _I think what they saw in me was a maturity, an ability to hustle, to focus, and an unwavering resolve to close the deal. Those first few investors took a chance- a big chance, and mostly a blind chance- on me, and now-" one shoulder twitches- "everybody's winning. In thinking about the character traits you've shown yourself to have, I wonder if I haven't overlooked the same untapped potential in you."_

 _It's not like Chuck Bass to be speechless, but he really, truly, can't think of a thing to say._

 _Bart raises his wine glass; Chuck hastily lifts his ice water to toast._

" _To Bass family traits," Bart suggests._

 _Chuck clinks. "Hear, hear."_

 _Bart is gesturing with his other hand as he brings the rim to his lips. "Let's get you some wine, for God's sake," he chides, waving the waitress over._

Blair's eyes are wide, lips parted again, but she's trying to read his face: "That's… very positive. Isn't it?"

He nods, slowly. "Yes. It certainly is."

A tentative smile spreads across her face. "Are you happy?"

 _That, if not for you, this- well- would have turned out quite differently._

But here she is: blonde; ribs bandaged; pink apostrophes on her face where her stitches have come out; on bed rest. Smiling at him, eyes lit up.

He smiles back, stomach roiling.

"I am."

iii.

 _Wednesday, January 30_

She drags her purse across the cab seat behind her, slinging it over her shoulder as she gets to her feet. She pauses for a moment too long, and the cab driver twists around and says, "Miss?" through the open door.

"Sorry." She slams it shut and steps forward, onto the curb.

It's a miserable, gray, bitingly cold day, and her hair is tucked inside her coat, brimmed knitted cap meeting triple-looped scarf in the back to conceal the blonde.

The snow is melting from the storm that ravaged New York the night it happened; it's alternately chafing and freezing, turning into hardened cinder-colored mountains.

Mark Bar is open; she could go in.

Sit at the bar. Order a glass of wine. They might card her, given that the NYPD probably came knocking to ask how on earth seventeen-year-old Blair Waldorf managed to be served alcohol at such a reputable establishment.

Or she might ask them how on earth they didn't notice when that charming man in their reputable establishment managed to roofie her best friend, in what appeared to have been plain sight.

Instead, she turns, slowly, Chanel boots gristling on the salted pavement, to her left.

iv.

Eighty blocks south, in deep, thin studios with lofted frescoed ceilings, fashion assistants and couturiers and seamstresses tug and smooth and cinch, pin cushions filled to capacity dangling from slipknotted tape measures around their necks.

Fashion models, hollow-eyed and anemically beautiful, perch Bambi-like on stilettoes that hike them a half foot closer to the sky.

Makeup artists and hair stylists cluster at the outer bands, muted palettes and teasing combs held aloft in demonstration.

And slim racks in black and silver steel, laden with heavy garment bags bobbling side to side, trail obediently behind stylists and production managers at the perimeters.

v.

Serena turns left again at Fifth Avenue, digging for her phone when it chimes and hesitating when she sees that it's Dan.

She'll text him back later.

She wants him to think she's at home napping, like she said she'd be, after all.

Not well enough to receive visitors; the sore throat came on suddenly. She's afraid she's contagious. Just wants to make sure not to infect anyone.

The crosswalk sign beckons: WALK.

 _I walked in myself._

Serena imagines the thought of a child abandoned; this intersection deserted; the sky wet with snow; darkness, emptiness, everywhere: in the cab ride home, in the penthouse, in her heart.

Everywhere but here.

The footpath is clear, but the grassy areas beyond are uneven, sloping planes of dirty snow and most of the trees (save evergreens and pines) are bare. She worries, the wind whipping into her face underneath the brim of her hat, that she won't be able to find where it happened.

Her anxiety is unfounded; she's barely two minutes west of Fifth Avenue when she sees it, roped off, oddly comforting, in yellow.

POLICE LINE. DO NOT CROSS.

NYPD CRIME SCENE.

vi.

The yellow tape measure loops around the bust, clad in a skin-tone strapless bra, and then moves down and cinches just above the navel.

A harangued seamstress looks skeptically at the proffered garment – one of many similar pieces just pulled from a nearby rack – like it's telling her a long joke and she wishes it would get to the punchline already.

The stylist's face is wound tight, waiting for the blow.

"All this?" The seamstress gestures at the rack, then glances down the line of models that have been cast for three weeks, standing in their uniforms of flesh-colored bras and half-slips to match.

The stylist nods, tightly. The ask is not lost on her.

The seamstress gestures toward the model closest to her. Beckons her forward.

"Lift up your hair, darling," the seamstress murmurs, threading the tape measure between her thumb and forefinger.

vii.

Serena tries to see where he took her off the path, but it's useless. The snow hadn't really started by the time Blair left the footpath; and it continued long after she left the park.

She doesn't have to stare at the boxed-in clearing, traced with yellow, for long before she can see it.

Brown waves brushing dark red tweed; a ribbon of green and yellow glinting in the occasional illumination of starlight-

Scratch that. The sky was too heavy with clouds.

Prim Cole Haan high-heeled saddle shoes sinking in the wet earth, just frozen enough to crunch, the solid surface giving way at once to softness underneath, like crème brulee.

Head lolling, eyelashes fluttering, trying to keep herself upright.

Squirming away at the recognition- crying out at a shredding feeling on her lower lip, then a sharp burst across her cheekbone, too dazed to run.

Serena watches from behind the yellow, the world gone dark around her.

 _Run, Blair._

Stumbling, easily pressed to her knees in the mud, stockings dampening, tearing: her hair fisted in a hand that is not her own.

Serena's cheeks are wet. _I'm right here, Blair._

One hand clumsily fumbling in her pocket, withdrawing her phone, screen alight, with a frantic jerk- losing it in the process- turning, reaching, stretching.

Hand snapped. A yelp.

Serena doesn't know how she wound up on her back, and she can't bear to watch any longer. She turns away, slowly retracing her steps down the footpath, and emerges onto and walks straight across Fifth (best to avoid the Met steps), hand in the air.

She's looking out the window, waiting for the cab to pull away from the curb. She glances up. They're right outside a sophisticated French bar called Pleiades, which she and Blair- all four of them, really- love.

viii.

In another atelier, a couturier cradles her forehead in both hands.

"You have to be kidding."

An intern, whose only job is keeping track of the emails for the production team (and fetching coffee) so they can focus on their work, shakes her head and holds out a sheet of paper.

"No, ma'am." When the couturier doesn't reach for the print-out, the intern offers a grande Americano instead. "He'll be here in an hour."

"Get someone to Mood, then," the couturier mutters, "and buy up everything they have."

ix.

Dan feels terrible that Serena got sick; he doesn't want to stay long, just drop off some get-well-soon flowers (pink carnations, feminine and lovely and soft like her) and some matzoh ball soup.

Gestures in each hand. Obviously he's concerned.

For her throat.

She's under a lot of stress lately, and what she needs is patience, understanding and love from those who care about her.

The front desk staff at The Palace know him well enough not to hassle him by now. Which is progress.

She's probably sleeping, since she hasn't replied to his text, but if nothing else, he can leave these with Erik or Lily.

In the end, no one answers the door. Serena must be out cold, Erik at some after-school activity, and Lily shopping for mixed-neutral outfits. Or something.

After a minute of hesitation, he places the container of soup and the carnations outside her door, leaning the carnations against the wall and hoping they won't be trampled.

He jams his hands in his pockets, checking his phone once more- she must definitely be asleep; just Jenny saying she feels like making cookies, and does he want chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin?- glancing around when the doors open on the 19th floor and close after an awkward pause where no one gets on.

x.

She knocks again, impatiently, on 1812. Her Chanel boot drums idly against the carpet, done in an elaborate tile pattern.

Her head tips backward in exasperation when there's no movement inside. She barely refrains from groaning aloud; her hand tightens around her purse strap. He's not hiding or ignoring her or gazing through the peephole, willing her away.

He's really not home.

The _one_ day she needs him.

She resolves to wait, flopping her back against the wall and sliding down, knees rising parallel with her shoulders.

She'll call Dan as soon as she gets upstairs.

Flipping through the landslide of unread email that she's been neglecting for over a week, Serena comes to rest on a message from her mother, a forward of the schedule for fashion week for Serena's comments, updated and complete with Lily's comments in red under each show's time slot: _On the List; Waiting to Hear; Need to RSVP Yes/No_. Lily has marked in green which shows the Van der Basses will be attending as a family. She mentioned as much the other day, and seemed amused at Chuck's suggestion that they all coordinate outfits.

Her eyes fall on the highlights in yellow, of Waldorf Designs: which cocktail parties and brunches Eleanor is scheduled to attend, and, of course, her prime-time runway show.

 _On the List._

 _(Front Row.)_

Surely Blair will attend this one. She'll have to. She'll be first chair. It's tradition.

She replies; Lily, CC Erik: _Count me in for all._

Ten minutes later, no sign of her darling stepbrother, she throws in the towel. He hasn't called her back. She tries one more time, pressing her ear to the door of 1812, and hears nothing but dead quiet from inside. She sighs. He's probably off engaging in his own brand of self-medication.

She waits for her elevator to come up, watching the other one slide down, pale light skipping from circle to circle, pausing on 19 with a ding that she can faintly hear and then continuing its descent to the lobby.

Fifteen floors below, Chuck has his phone set to screen all calls except Blair's bedroom extension. He's seated at the round table in the corner of his father's office, coat thrown over the loveseat, prospecti of Bass Industries' subsidiaries spread in a fan before him.

xi.

Serena.

"Hey- hi. How are you feeling?"

"Awful," she warbles.

"Yeah, you sound, I mean- no offense- but you sound terrible. Are you getting worse?"

She sighs, and he hears a rush of wetness as she blows her nose. "I don't know. I think I just need to pass back out. I've been dead asleep all afternoon."

"I, uh- I actually stopped by, rang the doorbell, but I guess…"

"You did?"

Her voice spikes up just enough.

"Yeah, I just wanted to bring you some flowers and soup. I actually left them right outside your door, like, ten minutes ago."

She glances at the flowers in their spot on top of her dresser, flinching at her reflection in the mirror.

"Oh, Dan, that's so sweet. I'll go out and get them right now."

Her heart pangs. She knows this girl she's looking at; all too well.

xii.

Chuck.

"Hey- did you need me?"

"I did, and you weren't there for me," Serena play-sulks, voice light.

"Sorry. What can I help you with, sister dear?"

She pauses, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear, and squirts more eye makeup remover on her cotton ball.

And goes back to work at the mess of black streaking her cheeks.

"I can't remember at the moment," she muses. "But if I do, I'll call you."

"You know where to find me," he agrees, a bit resignedly.

She raises one eyebrow in the mirror at that, and snaps her phone shut.

xiii.

 _Thursday, January 31_

Eleanor Waldorf arrives at her atelier, impeccable in a white skirt suit with black pin stripes, coiffed hair, and black brimmed hat with a white silk flower over one ear.

Her town car, loaded with hat boxes and hard-cover suitcases, is instructed to wait at the curb while she checks in with her production team, and then it's straight uptown; she's having dinner at home tonight.

The runway models, like mannequins on their fitting podiums, nod deferentially toward the lady of the house as she enters.

She smiles, murmuring to Laurel that the color palette looks fantastic. Just like they planned. Laurel agrees, pleasure lighting her eyes as she surveys the lineup for the show.

"Maybe a little wider on that neckline," Eleanor suggests, gesturing at the third model. "What do you think?"

"We're wide on number five; I think we wanted to keep each one different, unless you've rethought that."

"No, you're right." She blinks. "I think hair up, though, for both three and five."

Laurel gestures over her shoulder, and the creative director jots down a note to discuss with the hair stylist when he returns to the atelier.

"This seems too easy," Laurel remarks as she walks Eleanor to the door. "Everything came together without a hiccup." She does not add: which is a miracle, given we essentially overhauled the entire showcase in the last few weeks.

Eleanor wags a finger, smiling, and tells Laurel not to count her chickens yet; but as she raises her head Laurel can see the dark circles under her eyes, the layers of concealer and the sloppy liner job.

"I've hardly thought of anything else," Laurel says, quietly, before Eleanor slips back into her town car.

After a pause, Eleanor replies, "Consider yourself lucky. I've thought of absolutely nothing else."

Laurel touches her shoulder as she slides in and closes the door after her.

xiv.

Blair cups her hand around the receiver, laughing quietly in Chuck's ear: "So apparently Dorota didn't tell my mother I dyed my hair."

Chuck hisses sympathetically, picking up a bottle of Scotch and holding it at arm's length, inspecting it. The blonde was a shock for him; but Eleanor Waldorf?

"What did she do?"

"She turned three shades of white, but recovered quickly, to her credit." She pauses, and he hears the smile in her voice. "She hugged me for a long, long time."

He smiles, too.

"What's new at school?"

He licks his lips, grabbing for a topic other than everyone-is-still-obsessed-with-you as he slides the Scotch back into its cupboard.

"We… got knocked out of the basketball playoffs," he offers.

"Tragic," she says, dripping sarcasm.

"It's like the first year out of the last twenty that we didn't make it to the final four," he defends, reaching for a stemless wine glass. "And we lost to _Dalton_ , for God's sake."

"Are we bad this year?"

"We've been better." He hesitates; does he tell her that Nate played terribly? That he singlehandedly blew it for St. Jude's? That he _traveled_ , which he's never failed to mock any other player for doing? (Honestly, athletic technique is one of the only things Nate is really serious about.) That he was one short of fouling out, and the coach benched him for the first time ever?

Does he tell her that Serena has started cutting class again, just like the old days, disappearing during sixth period study hall and no one seeing hide nor hair of her until the following morning? Her excuses of feeling sick are already wearing transparent in his eyes. Does he tell her that now, in addition to parents and teachers on the roster of people they're going to have to worry about concealing her possible future behavior from, Detective Humphrey is on the case?

And who the hell is left in the _they_ that's going to do all this, anyway?

Luckily, he doesn't have to decide any of that because he's succeeded in boring her. "Anything else?"

"Fashion week's pretty much the talk of the school. And the gala." He pours himself a splash of white wine. Just a splash. He'll get more later if he wants it. And it'll go better with the chicken marsala steaming up from the room service tray.

She ignores his hidden addition – _and you_ – and clears her throat.

"Have you gotten your tux for the gala yet?"

He smirks. "I'll probably just wear something I have lying around."

She snorts. "I'm sure. To the Met Gala. Directly following Fashion Week."

"My taste is timeless, Waldorf," he says with affected boredom, spearing a large bite of mushroom.

"Have you…" she pauses, "… decided who you're taking yet?"

He stops chewing, and then swallows the half-masticated mushroom, swigging wine to get it down without choking. "I think the Bass der Woodsen family is going as a unit," he says, carefully, "as of now. So I'll have… Erik as my date."

"Wingman," she teases.

"Stepbrother," he amends.

"Better get him flowers." She yawns; he hears the duvet rustling. It's late. "Or he might be more of a chocolates person."

xv.

Just down the hall, also with hand cupped over receiver, Eleanor is wearing a thick face mask, a terrifying bright mint green, her hair held back in a stretchy fabric headband.

Pacing.

"I understand, Laurel. I know what I'm asking," she says, tiredly. She keeps almost putting her fingers against her brow or temple, only to remember at the last moment that she's wearing a gel mask, and stops herself each time.

"I- I mean, we can try making it work with what we've got, but I realize it's a lot to ask of them. And that's not in anyone's employment agreement. So really, it's up to them."

She listens to Laurel's warning, painting the base-case scenario, which skews more toward worst-case than not.

She sighs.

"I'll sleep on it, but I can promise you now: my answer is not going to be different in the morning. I think we put it to the group tomorrow, and let the chips fall where they may, and we'll just have to address the damage at that time."

Laurel tries one last time: the image of an empty runway, music and lighting and the grandiose "EW" giving way to… nothing.

Eleanor doesn't catch herself, pinching the bridge of her nose, and her fingertips come away covered in green gel. She cuts into Laurel's projection of what the Times would say, what Vogue would print-

"Laurel, I have to go. I'll see you in the morning."

xvi.

 _Friday, February 1_

Dr. Genove accepts a chamomile, steaming up from vintage bone china, and thanks Dorota.

She faces Blair, saucer resting on her knee.

"Blair, I want you to understand that these sessions are very much for you to speak your mind on any topic you want to talk about- anything you want help with, or just to bounce off someone- really, anything at all is fine."

Blair nods.

"At the same time, we were brought together for a reason," the doctor continues smoothly, "and I want to make sure that we're not avoiding the elephant in the room. I want to make sure that we're treating any residual difficulties you might be having by going straight to the source, and not just focusing on the symptoms."

She nods again, slower, and swallows a lump in her throat.

"So in that vein, I don't want us to lose sight of the trauma you've been through, and the specific ramifications it might be having on the way you view yourself and the world around you. We have different options for how I can help. I can ask you questions, both about tendencies I observe or comments you make to me, and together we can trace how those might be linked to what you've been through. Or if you have thoughts about what happened, or how it's affecting you, you're welcome to share those with me. If neither of those seems right, there are all sorts of exercises we can walk through together to help us get in touch with…" she pauses. "Well, anything, really."

Blair levels a smirk at her. "Ink blot tests and the like?"

Dr. Genove chuckles and takes a sip; too eager, and burns her tongue. She places the chamomile down on the vanity.

"We could, although those are more for aptitude and diagnosis, and I'm not sure that's really the agenda here."

"What is?"

They look at one another for a long moment.

"In my view, we're here to help you process what happened to you and how that impacted you. Nothing can take it away, and no amount of talking things out can erase it, but being able to be aware of your tendencies and the new ways you might come to think and feel as a result of it is the healthiest way of coping with it all."

Blair nods, again, gaze reverting inward. She hadn't wanted to start therapy- though she'd known, for one thing, that she couldn't avoid it; and for the other, that she certainly needed it, if only to help her get a decent night's sleep again- but she has to admit, she likes Dr. Genove. The woman doesn't dilly-dally. She's subtle, refined, yet unconcerned with sugarcoating.

"What," she asks carefully, "do you think we should do?"

The doctor clasps her hands over one knee; notepad must still be in her purse. "I'd like to understand more about what happened to you," she says, "although I'm aware you may not remember every detail of the assault, or even the period of time leading up to those events, due to the effects of having been drugged. But it would be helpful for me in treating you to understand what you do remember. I only know what I've read, and a little more from what your parents told me, but it's my understanding they weren't there when you gave your full statement to the police, and of course I haven't seen your medical charts or anything. So I'm very much in the dark."

Blair feels her chest tightening, remembering being naked, shivering, on that huge white sheet of paper, closing her eyes, clutching at the air, desperate for Serena, leaning her weight on the hand that steadied her, the chill of the rubbing alcohol on the cloth that Annemarie apologetically slid between her legs, and the sting she couldn't ignore any longer when it touched her skin.

Shame floods her, fresh and hot as that first moment.

She nods, breathing out slowly.

"Just as much as you're comfortable with," Dr. Genove says. "And we can stop or change the subject any time you want."

Blair opens her mouth and says: "I was at Mark Bar. By myself. Having a glass of wine." She pauses. "No judgment," she warns.

Dr. Genove smiles and waves a hand airily. "Please. I came of age in the '70s."

"I… this guy- the door opened, and someone walked in, and I knew someone had come in because I was sitting by the entrance and it was freezing when the door opened."

(Eye-rolling herself for sitting there; should she move?)

"And I looked over and it was this… guy. And I went back to having my wine."

"Did he just have a seat? Was he at the bar, or did he go to a table?"

Blair shrugs. "Just came in to get a drink, like me. He was a few seats away, in the corner chair at the bar."

"Was there anything you noticed about him right away?"

"I… he was tall, and good-looking," Blair says, without much conviction. "He said hello to the bartender, but nothing really stood out about his appearance."

Dr. Genove smiles. "Winter clothing, if one is approaching it practically, tends to be a bit of an appearance equalizer."

Blair smiles back in agreement. "I remember he had leather gloves."

(The soft slap as he dropped them down, palm to palm, on the bar.)

"And a long coat. He hung it up on the wall next to him."

(Her own coat neatly folded and laid across her lap.)

Dr. Genove must see her blinking increase, and she steers her, briefly, to a safer subject. "Do you remember what time it was? …Ish?"

"Uh…" She concentrates on calculating. "Maybe ten? Give or take. A few minutes after, probably."

The doctor nods. Then, slowly: "Do you happen to remember how it was that you started talking?"

She closes her eyes.

Cabernet in a broad bowl, stem firm between her third and fourth fingers; Weltevrede a few seats down. A dish, with a tiny cocktail fork, off to one side, the side nearest her.

She's silent for a long time, and the doctor's tentative voice reaches her, saying if she doesn't remember, that's okay; they can come back to it later.

 _Black cherries?_

"I remember," she says.

(That familiar anxiety swirling in her stomach.)

(Leaning over, hair falling against her cheekbone.)

 _Blair Waldorf._

She opens her eyes, expression defeated, and meets the Doctor's gaze.

"He introduced himself to me," she says, with a slight nod. "Asked me my name."


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Happy New Year! (I was really hoping to get this up before midnight so it could be the last chapter of 2018, but que sera, sera… unless everyone is on vacation in Alaska/Hawaii/American Samoa? Lol =D)**

 **I heart every single one of you for reading, following, favoriting and reviewing. Thank you so much. I'm so looking forward to bringing you more and more of our story in 2019 =)**

 **Yahira… I'm super keen to hear if your idea was correct. Do tell, please!**

i.

 _She tugs at the wrist of one glove with the fingers of her other hand, casting a backward glance at the table. Just to make sure she didn't forget anything._

 _Fast as a blink, her vision blurs over the scene of their corner, her second empty wine glass next to his half-full lowball tumbler. Closed leather booklet with the receipt for their drinks, charged, signed, tipped. Tealight flickering warmly against the juncture of the walls._

 _It snaps back so quickly; a second later she doesn't remember that for one moment, everything went hazy._

 _She fastens the top button on her coat and adjusts her headband. He's a pace in front, pulling on his gloves, scarf looped effortlessly. He smiles back at her as he pushes the door open and lets her walk through ahead of him._

 _The night is somewhere between violet and slate. The lights of the city are ever-there, ever-purple, ever-resistant to letting the city sink into the comfort of true darkness, but clouds heavy with the impending storm hang low, dampening them._

 _It's a perfect night, she thinks, for a cozy start, the kiss of the back of a gloved hand as a princess is tucked chivalrously into the back of a town car, the setting of a date for a stroll through the snow tomorrow. A perfect juxtaposition of the dark and the stormy against the lightness of two hearts freshly a-flutter. A perfect scene for inducing envy in all who hear it told._

 _As they step out from under the lee of the awning, he bends his arm, bringing a broad umbrella up to protect them both from the light but steady freezing rain that's falling around them, and extends his arm._

 _A sparkle, intense- mature; romantic; like nothing she's ever seen before- in his eye._

 _She gleams back up at him, breath coming in a quick white wisp, and tucks one glove into his elbow._

ii.

 _Friday, February 1_

The spaces of Dais and the lobby of The Palace are hung with sumptuous black-and-white striped tapestries gathered with wide gold ribbons above where they spill in draped puddles on the floor; striped tablecloths to match adorn every table in Divine, with tall white tapers in scrolled brass candleholders lighting each one.

The catering staff of The Palace have foregone their usual black-and-white outfits to dress in full tails with gold sequined bowties and vests: tuxedo trousers on the men and pencil skirts with tuxedo stripes on the women.

Custom-made gold serving gloves adorn the hands that hoist beveled mirrored trays shimmering with champagne in tulip-shaped flutes.

When The Palace's patriarch gave orders to his two house managers that the scene at his hotel must, without fail, be the site of this year's most photogenic and remarkable Fashion Week kickoff party, waving an impatient hand when they asked what sort of aesthetic he'd like and saying he didn't want to go with the same-old-same of red carpet and brand-dotted white backdrop for photo ops (looking at you, Four Seasons) or neon lights in blue and purple and orange (this isn't Vegas, Bryant Park Hotel), but that they should create "something classic yet modern, timeless yet humorous, with the perfect dose of excess… but without being excessive," Xavier and Kathryn had exchanged a panicked glance after he turned his back, clearly satisfied with having provided his creative "guidance."

Tonight, when he steps off the elevator with Lily on his arm glittering in floor-length red taffeta with shoulder pads and cap sleeves, murmuring to her that his only wish is that The Palace lobby had a grand staircase, as her entrance is not something to be missed- Lily turning to murmur into his ear before pressing red lips to his- they both drift to a stop.

"Oh, my God," Lily breathes, hand coming to her heart. "Bart, this is stunning. It's like we've died and gone to avant-garde heaven."

A waiter approaches, subtle, from his place next to a pillar.

"Champagne, Mr. Bass? Ms. Van der Woodsen?"

"Thank you, Zachary, yes," Bart nods, taking two and handing Lily's to her first.

She takes it, distractedly, eyes still roving over the tapestries, the tapers, the freshly-washed marble floors devoid of any inch of red carpet.

"Do you like it?" Bart nudges her as they maneuver through the thickening crowd.

"I love it." She peeps at him roguishly. "Tell the truth. Did Charles design this?"

Bart scoffs, shoulders jumping like she's dealt him a blow. "You wound me." He inclines his flute toward her. "To the most wonderful woman in the world accompanying me to the most stylish party in the world."

She clinks and lets it linger. "I'll drink to that."

iii.

Serena's tone is light, but her blue eyes are icy enough that one could actually mistake her for Bart's biological child.

"Brother dear," she greets him, eyes on the bartender, though she's holding a full flute that she just got in exchange for the empty one she gave to a waitress.

He takes her in, the slight pinkness in the whites of her eyes, the tautness of her neck. She stuck out school today, all the way to eighth period, which he'd predicted she would: she couldn't very well "leave school sick" and still attend the kickoff reception. He's been avoiding her as best he can, not wanting to become the focus of her aimless, simmering frustration the way he imagines Humphrey probably is; which he supposes is a use for the man, anyway.

"How are you?" he asks cautiously.

"How are _you_?" she fires back, accusing- provoked by nothing, the way Self-Loathing Serena tends to be. She twists her head and focuses those cold eyes on him. "Or maybe I should ask, how's Blair?"

Erik, behind her in slate gray that somewhat coordinates with the blush-and-silver of Serena's floaty, full-skirted dress, long legs extending from beneath the cloud of tulle like stems from a blooming peony, actually steps back at her harsh tone.

Chuck and Erik look at each other, and Chuck twists his mouth diplomatically.

"I'm not sure how she is," he tells Serena. "You'd have to ask her."

She doesn't hide her extravagant eyeroll. "I'm sure you don't," she says. "I'm sure you haven't seen her in _ages_ , right?"

Chuck blinks. "I wouldn't put it that way," he says flatly.

She stares at him like he's told her he just came in from strangling puppies.

"Do you think this is okay?" she asks him at a hot whisper, finally turning toward him and away from the bar.

"Serena…" Erik glances behind them.

Like she doesn't hear him: "Do you think it's okay that she should go through this without me? Do you think that's healthy?"

She shakes her head.

"You probably think things are best this way. You probably think…" she flaps a hand diminutively: "'oh, Serena's just, just- nothing, Serena's totally _useless_ when it comes to anything serious, anything that- anything that requires maturity or reliability- Blair's better off without that _useless_ flake- "

She misses the flinch that crosses his face as she enunciates the word 'useless.'

He cuts her off. The hand that is not holding his still-full flute comes out of the pocket of his navy tux trousers- mauve bowtie and silk lapel flower; does it get better?- and reaches for her gesturing hand, stopping short of touching her.

"I don't think you're useless," he tells her, quietly, steadily.

"I'm sure," she all but snarls. "I'm sure you're not just totally convinced of my worthlessness, that I'll just make everything worse, like I always do…"

"Serena." Erik grasps her arm now with both hands; Chuck's hand still hovers, closer now, as Serena has advanced toward him a little. "Enough. You're about to make a scene."

She shoves her little brother off, almost elbowing him in the chest, and downs her champagne with a flourish.

"Wouldn't that just be perfect? Serena the Liability? I mean, honestly," she chuckles, eyes drifting closed for a moment, "what could be more natural? Beautiful party, attending with her high-society family, Serena gets messed up, knocks over a table, maybe the tablecloth catches on fire…" she eyes Chuck. "And has to be spirited away before anyone realizes it wasn't even an accident?"

Chuck touches her now, fingertips just at her wrist, and she looks down at the contact. "I don't think you're useless," he repeats.

She waits, expressionless.

"I think," he says, very quietly, "she's suffering right now. She isn't herself."

Erik opens his mouth to add something, but Serena cuts him off: "Luckily, I can be myself enough to make up for the both of us. Tell me, after I stumble and overturn the buffet tables like dominoes for sport," and she smirks, leveling a hard look right into Chuck's eyes, ignoring Erik's woeful silence at her side, "are you going to take me through the kitchen and up the freight elevator so no one sees what a train wreck I am?"

Chuck's fingertips graze her forearm, almost in spite of himself, as he clears the knot from his throat. "You're not a train wreck," he tries again. Comforting words used to calm Self-Loathing Serena. "You're… suffering, too."

Erik presses his lips into a thin line, swallowing, unbeknownst to either of them.

"Spare me the psychoanalysis," she says with a scowl. "I'm fine. I'm just trying to be there for Blair, selflessly. It's what real friends do."

She starts to step away, and Chuck sees, briefly, the anger in Erik's face as he goes after her.

She pauses, and speaks, half over her shoulder: "Conscious. I'm conscious." Then she turns, plucking a full flute from the tray of the same waitress, and beelines for the bar. And he's confused for a second before he remembers that all he did was ask her how she was.

iv.

She's in bed, live-streaming the coverage at the massive white tents fifty blocks south, covers pulled up to her chin like her laptop is a two-way mirror and they might be able to catch a glimpse of her if she doesn't hide.

She can't help but smile a little at the buzzing background, people in black crewnecks with black headsets clinging to their heads; an actress and socialite kissing each other's cheeks in greeting, one with a fur muff and the other in embroidered brocade.

Fashion is a whole world that one can always escape into, a whole world where, no matter what's in one's heart, what's in one's mind, one can alter the axis of one's existence by choosing deliberately what one puts on one's body. It's a delicious blend of expression, communication and, sometimes most importantly, misdirection. It's so much bigger than one person, even one person who's been splashed over the headlines the last few weeks.

Surely, surely…

She hasn't verbalized it yet.

Surely, she thinks, she can make it into one of the shows without too much fuss. Maybe a felt hat in a subdued shade over an uncharacteristically long sheath, belted- with a bolero?- and blonde ponytail pulled over one shoulder. Maybe even a pair of cat-eye glasses to disguise herself.

She wouldn't sit first chair- not even at her mother's show, she can't risk it- but she should at least try. At least one.

And maybe, if it goes well, more.

Dorota does have a knack for disguises, she thinks as the laptop screen goes momentarily black between segments and her reflection is mirrored back at her: dusty rose turtleneck draped with blonde waves. She's barely recognizable.

But an alias couldn't hurt.

Aurelie, perhaps. She's always liked that name. And some French surname. Bonmarchand?

Maybe she'll find a lower-profile show that Chuck is also going to, and take a cell phone, and text him in the middle to move his head because she can't see.

She's chuckling at her own plan, the dreamy, fantastical scene playing in her head: Aurelie Bonmarchand text-taunting Chuck Bass as he twists to look over his shoulder- _nice ascot, by the way; I love that shade of blue-_ Blair Waldorf's name on no one's lips, proof of the princess-recluse's forgotten status obvious in the very lightness of the air around them, and her own heart slowing, shoulders relaxing at the comforting realization that she's no longer the talk of this town-

When her bedside phone shrills, and she jumps.

v.

"I think we should leave her alone," Erik murmurs. He smiles at the waiter who catches his eye: "San Pellegrino on the rocks, please?"

"I'm inclined to agree, although she came dangerously close to threatening arson thirty minutes ago," Chuck drolls back, eyes elsewhere, expression pleasant.

Erik heaves a sigh, adjusting his bowtie. Serena was obviously drunk before she came downstairs- honestly, does she really think he's stupid enough to fall for the old I-need-more-time-to-get-ready-no-this-is-tea-in-this-cup-really? Their family _invented_ that.

He wasn't prepared, though, for the rapid loss of footing once he finally got her downstairs, nearly two hours after the reception started. Managed to maneuver her as far away from their mother and Bart as possible, which wasn't difficult, as the happy couple was surrounded by press requesting photos and statements to splash across the Style section in tomorrow morning's special edition.

The Palace's kickoff reception, evidenced by the fact that Anna Wintour stopped by and made a point of giving Bart her RSVP to Sunday's Fashion Week brunch for all to hear (live-Tweeted by Conde Nast, tagged #NYFW, and hastily viralized by every fashion blogger in the Twittersphere), is the toast of Manhattan.

Serena didn't care when he told her.

He waited; watched; repeated it. Her love for all things editorial, and Dan's hopelessness in comprehending what she was saying, was the reason she gave for why her boyfriend wasn't accompanying her to tonight's reception: _It's not his thing,_ she'd said. But tonight, it didn't seem like her thing either. Not even the arrival of Anna Wintour, the photo of her smiling sedately next to Bart just twenty-one floors below, prompted movement from his sister.

When, finally, she got herself zipped into a dress, still loafing on the edge of her bed with tulle frothed around her as he held up shoe options until she finally slipped on a pair, and forewent a purse- _I don't need one; we're just going downstairs_ ; as if that had ever mattered before- she was silent on the elevator ride down, taking two glasses of champagne and downing one in three swallows, weaving through the crowd with the other in hand as he followed, smiling awkwardly at the waiter who thought one of the flutes she took was for him.

And she saw Chuck, and stopped in her tracks, and then drew herself up to her full height.

"Any suggestions?" he asks his stepbrother. "I know you've dealt with her in this state before."

Chuck turns his head, voice low: "I'm not sure any of us has been in this state before."

They drift apart, one eye on the door unless Serena comes back down from upstairs, where she retreated, shoulders slumped in defeat, after twenty minutes at the reception, declaring it a lame party.

Chuck watched over Erik's shoulder when Erik stepped around a pillar to track Serena's path to the elevator, alert for a stumble- she's obviously pretty far gone- and saw her eyes drift shut as she leant on the elevator wall before the doors closed.

Lily's eyes are sparkling when Chuck greets her, although she's looking around the room with obvious intent.

He jumps in front of it: "Serena's upstairs having a cup of tea," he explains confidentially. "Her throat's been bothering her."

Lily tsk-tsks. "She's been fighting that all week. She has to take better care of herself."

He takes a sip from what's still his first flute. "I couldn't agree more."

vi.

He doesn't miss the frustrated hand through the hair or absent tug of the collar while Erik stares at his tightly-clutched phone.

When Erik's gaze seeks him, he's already looking.

Erik nods his head toward the exit.

When he hands over his phone, on the way to the elevator, Chuck sighs.

 _Called B, but got disconnected. Gonna keep trying til get thru. Want to say hi?_

Serena's on the sofa in the Van der Woodsen suite, bare legs dangling over its arm, and she barely registers their presence when they come in.

"Serena," Erik says quietly, "you need to stop. If it's her house phone, you might be waking her up…"

"No," Serena retorts emphatically. "She's awake. We were talking for a minute, but we got disconnected somehow and," and she presses the Call button again, hard, "I need to talk to her."

"She might be tired, though, and trying to get to sleep," Erik tries again.

Serena ignores him, but shoots a glare at Chuck.

"Serena," Chuck says into the silence as she tries again, ten long seconds later, "let her come to you."

"Shut up. She's suffering and she needs her best friend." She looks up as she brings the phone to her ear. "Just like I need her."

Erik steps forward and sits on the coffee table next to her. "But if she's suffering, don't you think it's up to her to reach out on her own time?"

Her blue eyes meet his. "When you cut yourself open, did I wait for you to come to me on your own time?"

Erik stiffens.

"No," she continues. "I got on a train. I slept by your bed and held you and looked in your eyes and listened to everything you wanted to say. And I'm going to do the same for Blair. That's what you do when you love someone- do you honestly," and she brings the phone away from her ear in confusion, because it's stopped ringing, but the timer is still counting, and her mind is thick and sluggish, "honestly think I don't know-" she presses it back to her ear, "what Blair needs?"

She struggles to sitting when she hears the hum of Blair's voice on the other end.

"Serena?"

"Blair? Blair!"

She throws a triumphant look at the boys.

"Oh, I love you so much, Blair- so, so much," she says into the phone, eyes squeezing shut, "and I want- I was just at the kickoff party downstairs and- you'd love it- you have to come, just have to…"

"I can't," Blair is saying, but Serena doesn't hear her.

"I miss you, and you should definitely come, you don't even have to dress up- just come, it'll be just like old times and maybe- have you decided about which shows to go to?"

Erik glances over his shoulder at Chuck, who's biting on his lower lip punishingly.

"Serena," Blair tries to cut in as Serena bubbles on, "I think you've had too much to drink."

"And Erik's here!" Serena practically squeals. "Do you want to talk to him?"

There's a little sigh that the blonde doesn't even register. "Sure, yes. Please put him on," Blair says with measured patience.

Serena hands over her phone with a benevolent grin at her younger brother and hops up, practically prancing to the bar.

"Hi," Erik says quietly, voice close to breaking. It's the first time he's talked to Blair since it happened.

"Hi," she says softly back. "Is she okay?"

"I mean," he murmurs, watching an extravagant hair flip as Serena leans over a bottle of whisky, "I think you get the picture." He pauses, gets to his feet. "Are you okay? I've been thinking of you."

"I…" she clears her throat. "I've been thinking about you, too. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch," she whispers.

"No, no, don't apologize. I can only…" he starts toward the window. "I'm sorry if you're trying to sleep."

Serena has selected a bottle and she pours herself a generous neat.

Blair pauses. "Can you just- take her phone away or delete this number out of it or something, until she sobers up?"

His gaze drops to the carpet between his feet, and he keeps his voice low. "Yes, if that's what you want."

She pauses longer. "Just while she's drunk," she says at last.

"Okay. Will do."

"Erik, I love you." She says it urgently, like she almost forgot.

"I know. I love you."

She swallows, and the pitch of her voice creeps up. "And please take good care of her, okay?"

When Serena, grimacing from the whisky, realizes Erik has hung up and says he's not sure where he put her phone, she starts to cry.

"Does she want me to leave her alone?" she whimpers at Erik, expression forlorn.

"No, no," he insists, "she's just very tired and it's late- " (it's not that late) "and she said it would be better for you to both get some rest now and talk another time."

Serena seems to accept this. She's barefoot, but still wobbles as she comes around the bar, glass in hand. "She's so smart," she sighs, still teary. " _So_ smart."

"Let's get you to bed," Chuck suggests, before she decides to come back downstairs; with Lily's concern already piqued, the last thing they need is a Serena-went-up-for-tea-and-came-down-plastered-we're-not-sure-what-happened-maybe-cold-medicine situation.

She swats at his chest, then fluffs his lapel flower. "You can't come," she teases.

"Damn," he replies, gesturing toward her room. "That was my next suggestion."

Tears wet on her face, Serena manages a good-natured huff, but accepts his help when she stumbles and nearly falls over the coffee table.

In classic Hammered Serena fashion, she insists that she's sleeping in her cocktail dress, and climbs in, tulle fluffing up her covers.

Erik puts her shoes back where he got them just an hour or so ago.

Serena plucks at Chuck's lapel flower again as he reaches to turn off her bedside lamp.

"Is this a peony?" she whispers suddenly, eyes on his face.

"It's Armani," he replies, and kills the light.

"No chance she gets sick, right?" Erik asks in the elevator.

"She's fine. She just needs to sleep it off."

Erik locked Serena's phone, on silent, in a kitchen drawer while Chuck poured her whisky down the drain and put the glass in the dishwasher. The key is in Erik's inside breast pocket. He'll tell her found her phone in the refrigerator or something tomorrow.

Lily's clearly been waiting for them, and tears herself away, with obvious regret, from where she stands talking to Alexandra Shulman near the entrance to Dais.

"Is she feeling any better?" she asks, casting a glance above their heads.

"She's in bed," Erik replies. "She needs to get some sleep."

"She's run down," Chuck adds.

Lily frowns. "All this has taken such a toll on her. I can only imagine. I'll make sure she gets a big healthy breakfast in her when she wakes up tomorrow," she vows, and then looks at them both seriously. "Thank you for being such good brothers, my loves."

And kisses them both on the cheek, satisfied.

When she's a safe distance away, Chuck breathes a prolonged sigh of relief while Erik straightens his lapels.

"We don't make a bad pair," Erik says drily.

Chuck smirks. "That reminds me- are you more of a flowers or chocolates man?"

vii.

It's nearly midnight when they're finished, and the samples are carefully peeled off, and re-hung on their hangers, and the dress rehearsal wrinkles steamed back out, and the partner shoes left next to each look.

And the runway mopped, and the models sent home in their matching pink lip gloss and dark-gelled eyebrows.

One hanger, a thick one molded like shoulders, is slotted in the moonlight that comes in through a window backstage.

It floats, silvery, ethereal, silent.

viii.

 _Saturday, February 2_

Blair sucks in a deep breath and slowly, slowly, raises her arms, fingertips out, and reaches for the sky.

"Arms up, please."

In Eleanor's Manhattan atelier, the dust is settling, and the prognosis is not quite as grim as Laurel worried it might be. After yesterday morning's announcement there were only two walkouts; the remainder of the roster agreed to the changes, and the logistical nightmare of making the necessary adjustments scheduled began in earnest, with the schedule staggered so the final fittings and dry runs of runway styling can continue at pace.

And somewhere in the middle, Nate is thundering across the hardwood floor of a St. Jude's Saturday morning basketball scrimmage, his pinafore turned so that the blue side is out, darting around his teammates who have their white sides turned out. He fakes, double-fakes, and dribbles too hard, losing control of the ball and overcorrecting, veering close to his guard and spinning artfully, jumping high above his head and spiraling perfectly on the three-point jump shot. It hits the hoop and bounces off, caught on the rebound by a white pinafore, and Nate pauses a moment, staring at the disloyal hoop as play shifts toward the other half of the court. His coach calls out to him, gestures downcourt, and he snaps to it, but it's too late; he's off his man and the white pinafores score two points.

Blair is shaky with fatigue, stomach hot with nerves, after a lurching few hours of sleep that left her more tired at dawn than she was when she closed her eyes. Her physical therapy continues this morning, guided by a quiet, watchful balding man whose vocabulary seems to consist of nothing more than _Hello, Miss Waldorf_ and _Goodbye, Miss Waldorf_ and _breathe, arms up, twist, gently, lower,_ and _again._

"And turn to the side, please."

Eleanor smiles over the tops of her glasses from her perch on the edge of a rolling chair, tape measure in one hand, as she works on fitting the two new models. They're IMG veterans, borrowed from another show (tomorrow afternoon, so their novelty value for their original commitment isn't diminished), graciously agreed to by Reem Acra's casting director- because they're old friends; or because word has gotten around that Eleanor Waldorf has gone silent and serious and intense, the usual flutter and chatter vanishing from her manner, and she's lost weight, and no one has to wonder why, and the fashion community is more of a family than anyone would like to admit to the outside world. And so it was that the email came in shortly after midnight to Laurel, who forwarded it at once, sighing her relief over at the four garment bags to be shared between the two bodies they were desperately seeking, to the lady of the house. The declaration that Reem Acra would be honored to help, and they've secured confirmation from two of their mid-lineup girls that they'll be happy to step in, and they'll be at the Waldorf atelier by nine sharp.

Why the hell can't he focus the last few times he's played? Adrenaline and shame light up his cheeks as he charges toward the blue pinafore that grabs a white rebound, and with his guard trailing along behind him listlessly, Nate goes after his teammate, who stops in confusion when Nate reaches from behind him and swipes the ball away. More than one voice rises to chastise him, and another blue pinafore, stance civilian rather than athletic, approaches him, head tilted, saying his last name. Before he can stop himself, Nate lowers his free shoulder and pushes, pushes, shoving past his teammate, feeling a guilty stab of pleasure as the blue pinafore is knocked off balance.

The day after her first physical therapy session, Blair needed to take an anti-inflammatory; today, elation floods her when she can raise her arms above her head, breathe, twist slightly, and lower with no pain. She's given a congratulations- sparing, but glowing- that she's making good progress, and told she should start working on taking the stairs, just a few at a time, once per day, to help both sides of her body regain strength.

"Let's see you walk, please."

Eleanor braces the arch of her foot against the makeshift runway and pushes back, watching as the first new model, pins threaded through her outfit until they've seen the way it moves enough to finalize the tailoring, climbs up and starts down the catwalk, her footsteps punctuating the lack of music.

Nate is all the way at the other side of the court, having dribbled hard and charged harder, and he's unguarded and goes up for a dunk. And nails it. He hangs from the hoop with both hands, sweat dripping into his eyes, and drops down, accomplishment coursing through him.

And then he looks up, and meets the faces of a dozen of his teammates, in blue and white pinafores both, staring back at him from half-court. And his coach, glowering, red-faced, helping the blue pinafore that Nate didn't realize his shoulder laid out fully a few moments ago, who's had the wind knocked out of him, gasping, to his feet.

Over the physical therapist's shoulder, Dorota beams like Blair's just won a Gates fellowship. She officially rolls her eyes, but looks at Dorota after he's said _Goodbye_ , _Miss_ _Waldorf_ , and they share a small smile.

"Perfect."

Eleanor slides her glasses onto the top of her head, swiping at her tired- not teary- eyes, and gratefully accepts the green tea Laurel offers her, murmuring thanks without looking.

Nate's still out of breath, eyes hard and cheeks throbbing, after he walks away from their staring eyes and sits in the spot on the bench that his coach points to.

ix.

Dan brings her tea. Really, she could make tea herself at any time. He doesn't need to journey all the way in from Brooklyn to do it.

But he insists, and her head is throbbing too much to come up with yet another excuse to avoid spending time with him, to avoid needing to pretend to be the new girl, the upstanding girl: Dan's Serena.

It turns out to be a wash, because when he arrives she finds she doesn't have the energy to be that, either.

At the first lull in his solicitous questioning about her health- physical and emotional- and offers to be there, for anything she needs- _really, anything, I want you to know that,_ she looks him tiredly in the eye.

"Dan," she says, quietly, "I want you to know there's a lot about me that you don't know yet."

He blinks slowly; nods slowly. "Of course. It takes a lot of time to really get to know someone. We haven't been in each other's lives long enough…"

"No," she cuts in, "I don't mean, like, 'Serena likes rocky road ice cream when it's over 90 degrees' kinds of things. I mean, like, real things. Things I've done." She looks down at her empty cup, between her crossed legs, opposite where he sits at the foot of her bed. "Things I do."

"Okay."

He waits, and she sees that he wants to understand her- really, really does, and it's genuine and patient and irritation rises at him for being so _good_ ; and then she's irritated at herself for feeling that way.

"Things that aren't necessarily conducive to me being the Serena that you love."

"Serena," he says, tentatively moving closer, "is there anything you need to tell me? No- anything you _want_ to tell me?"

She looks into his dark eyes, and hers fill with tears.

He comes closer still, leaning over to place his teacup on her bedside table.

"You don't have to tell me now," he murmurs, so only she could hear, even if they weren't alone in the room. "You can take all the time you need. I'll…" he shakes his head. "I'll give you some space if you want. If you just need some time to rest and think about things. Or if you want to talk," he breathes, even lower, and slides his hands into her hair, cupping her face as the tears spill over, "I'm here. I know you know that, but I can't stop saying it." And his chagrinned smile flickers across his face.

She swallows hard, and abandons her teacup and brings both hands to cover his, and says, "do you think you really love me? All of me?"

He doesn't hesitate. He nods. "Yes. Yes. I do."

"Even the parts you don't know?" Her voice quavers, eyes searching his desperately.

"I love you- unconditionally. Whatever you've done, whatever you do, I'll be here for you."

"What if…"

She quiets. His thumbs brush her earlobes, comfortingly. "What if what?"

"What if I'm not the girl you think I am?"

He pauses at that, and she wonders if he's pushing down- which he is- the tense conversations they've had the last few days, when she disappears from school or says she's not feeling well enough to talk or hang out, but displays no signs of illness other than being locked away in her suite.

Or not, based on the lack of answer at the doorbell, which he knows is loud enough to wake her up.

He shakes his head and adjusts his hands as if to emphasize his point.

"I love the woman you've shown me that you are," he vows. "Through and through. The rest is just noise."

She leans her head toward him, and his lips brush her forehead before she rests her face in his shoulder, tears absorbing away into the sweater of Dan, the smell of Dan- Dan, who thinks she's kind, and good, and worthy… like they never were.

x.

Abaete is the first show Lily RSVP'd them for, and after Dan leaves, Serena pulls herself together and changes into an appropriately stylish outfit that she knows will complement her mother's. Not that they planned it or anything.

She and Erik ride to Bryant Park with Chuck to meet their parents, who have arrived already after departing early from a NYPL benefit. _Hard pass_ , Chuck had drawled when Bart asked if he thought the younger trio should be added to the list to lunch with fifty-some Masters of Library Science.

The greeter at the front of the tent looks up from her clipboard, loud fuchsia lipstick somehow working perfectly on her, and smiles a dazzling smile. "Name?"

"Bass der Woodsen," Chuck says, pocketing his gloves.

Serena, pristine beside him, rolls her eyes. "Van der Bass," she corrects.

"Our parents are still working out the pre-nup," Erik explains as the greeter's gaze flicks back and forth, and points out their names on her list.

The usher that shows them to their reserved seats looks more like an escaped model, legs sleek in Louboutin peep-toes, and she kisses Chuck on the cheek and whispers something about how it's good to see him again, and she should be through around eleven, if…

He smiles perfunctorily and turns away.

"Chuck," Serena hisses, "my mom is _right_ there; can you not?"

"She's an old friend," Chuck defends.

"What's her last name?" Serena retorts.

"She's from Barcelona; they're more casual there."

She shoots him a dirty look, but chuckles under her breath, and sinks down in the chair next to him, relaxed. She accepts her mother's squeeze of the knee, and Chuck reaches across the back of Serena and Erik's seats to meet Lily's waiting hand for a squeeze, nodding at his father.

The lights flip on, and a violin strikes up, backfilled by slow-paced, steady electric chords.

Abaete is known for its structured silhouettes with a twist, usually in a muted palette, but it's clear at once that this collection is a slight departure from what they normally show.

For one thing, the composition of the garments is a little less stiff than in seasons past; a little more figure-hugging, a little more about accentuating the shape of the wearer than establishing a new shape altogether. Serena notices at once how flattering it is, thinking that the designer is leaning more toward her taste than her mother's, and looks over to see, as if on cue, her mother tilt her head like she's not quite sure they're at the right show. Lily leans over to whisper to Bart, gesturing softly with her hand, as if trying to explain it to him. Bart nods seriously, the deep nod of the American male who wants to please his fashion-minded romantic partner, but all he can think to say to his fiancée is that these outfits would look beautiful on her, to which she smiles and links her fingers with his.

Chuck, at the other end of the family seating chart, is noticing something different. He can't claim expertise on Abaete's past lines, but he knows the general aesthetic, and more than seeing that this collection differs, he sees the details of each look: the first one comes out with a skirt slit up the front, six inches or so, from knee-length. The second is a tapered jumpsuit with perfectly ironed pleats at the hip, triple-cuffed hems on the pants, and a deep V-neck with matching folded detail at the shoulder.

He sneaks a glance at Serena, but she doesn't seem to notice anything.

The third is a mid-calf-length skirt with tiers, and he clenches his jaw unconsciously, because it's three in a row in silver brocade, and that's generally not a big color for the fall previews.

The next several outfits come and go, a few in raw silk, a few in velvet, even loungewear in linen…

But all in that light, silvery hue.

And every model, he notices with a jolt on the dozenth look, has soft pink lipstick and sculpted dark brows and lashes, regardless of hair color and skin tone. And almost every one has some sort of hand accessory: silver gloves or a silver cuff or, most knife-twistingly, a corsage adorning one wrist.

Around the fifteenth look, Serena's heart sinks, because there's an avant-garde bow curved over the model's left shoulder.

The bow appears in the next seven looks: spanning a model's tiny waist, adorning a model's chignon, holding up the bustle of one evening gown that a model reaches behind her and miraculously unties, letting loose the expansive train, eyes straight ahead, only breaking stride when she pauses at the end of the runway and flips the fabric over the end of the platform, lingering, pink lips pursed, as a volley of flash bulbs illuminates her.

The final look is the most extravagant of all, tiny bows at both shoulders and layer upon layer of silver brocade forming the skirt, which is slit high up one side, showing a tempting amount of the model's thigh.

The model passes through Chuck's field of vision and his head doesn't turn to follow her; he's remembering, instead, layers of silver brocade that he teased about peeling back, one at a time.

Serena remembers fluffing Blair's bow as Jenny knelt, fingers busy with thread and needle, working on Blair's torn hem, and adjusting the diamond necklace where it had slipped off her collarbone, while Blair sat seething on the edge of a chaise in the dressing room.

After the final parade- one last flip of that train, one last swirl of the layers of silver brocade- Lily leans over Erik's lap, smile hesitant, and says to Serena, "Well, that was certainly a departure. Maybe something from this collection might suit your taste for the gala?"

Chuck pretends not to hear; he flips to the next page in his program.

Serena makes a show of thinking it over, but wrinkles her nose and says, "I don't think silver's really my color."

xi.

 _Sunday, February 3_

This time, it's Serena's turn to refuse to come to brunch; Lily says she might be feverish, although whether Lily took Serena's word for it, or Serena ran the hot water in her bathroom until her forehead was damp and warm before letting her mother in, Chuck isn't sure.

As much as he rolls his eyes inwardly and complains to himself that she's being ridiculous, though, she responds to his texts beckoning her downstairs with one-worders- mostly _no_ and _later_ \- and his pulse starts to tighten.

Michael Kors is two tables away; she's already missed McQueen; and Anna Wintour is drinking fresh papaya juice from a straw in the shape of a stiletto (which she brought with her).

Normal Serena could be vomiting blood and intestine tissue and she'd pull herself together and get down here for this.

Erik passes him the key card under the tablecloth, tapping it on his knee as the crowd starts to break up to relocate to the tents, and Chuck excuses himself.

xii.

She's just lying in bed, curled on her side, nothing in her hands, no laptop, no magazine.

Relief breaks in him, followed by impatience that he tries to quell.

Before he says anything, she tells him she tried to call Blair again last night- she knows she shouldn't have, but, yesterday at the show, the dresses- she knows this sounds crazy, but…

"I know," he says. "I saw it, too."

Her eyes widen.

"I thought she might have seen it and been upset, and I wanted to…"

She stops; it's a lie.

She just wanted an excuse to call her. She wanted to talk about it as much as she hoped Blair wanted to talk about it.

She shrugs.

He keeps his face neutral. He doesn't want to open the Pandora's Box: he talked to Blair last night and she didn't mention it, so he thinks they're in the clear.

"I feel like…" she pushes herself to sitting upright, with effort. "I need to stop trying to force us to be 'Blair and Serena.' At least for now."

He leans against the frame of the door. "She'll always be Blair, and you'll always be Serena. Things are just…" he licks his lips, parade of pink-mouthed, silver-bedecked, dark-lashed beauties splitting across his vision. "Knocked off their axis right now. You can't expect her to play her usual role."

To be the prim one, the one who knows the rules and lists them off bossily, who tuts Serena for being late and pores over the details of every collection at Fashion Week with her and loves her no matter what.

Which is why pleasure furls in his chest every time she makes him laugh, or snipes at something he's said: because he knows she's still theirs, that she hasn't gone entirely.

"Come on," he says, finally, when he sees that Serena's mentally on the edge of getting out of bed. "You don't want to miss Reem Acra, do you? What if she decides to go to the gala and asks about what they showed?"

She rolls her eyes at what she knows is manipulation and throws back the covers.

And he's surprised to see that under her robe, she's already wearing a chic dress.

"I got dressed and then got cold feet," she grumbles dismissively at his raised eyebrow. "And remind me why you're going to Reem Acra anyway? They don't even make men's clothing."

He smirks dangerously. "Do you know how effective it is to flatter a woman by correctly naming the designer of the gown she spent thousands of dollars and a dozen hours on, to achieve the perfect look?"

Serena sticks out her tongue in disgust, fiddling with her hair in the mirror and reaching for her mascara. He pushes her door the rest of the way open and lounges against the other side of the door frame. "Don't they think you're gay when you do that?"

"I usually phrase it like, 'wow- I must say, it takes a special woman to wear a Reem Acra, rather than the Acra wearing her.'"

"God, you're gross," she snorts, but when she looks at him, a real smile lights her face.

"Deride it all you want; I've learned to be ready to catch them when they swoon."

She pauses, mascara wand halfway out of the tube, and decisively caps it and tosses it back on her dresser, leaving her lashes bare and blonde. "There's no way that works."

"Want me to try it on you?" He winks.

She tilts her face skyward. "Heaven help me. Please wait in the living room."

And so he does, firing off a text to Erik that he and Serena will meet them there; _crisis_ _averted_.

 _This_ _time_ , Erik replies, and Chuck can feel his anxiety through the words.

xiii.

That evening's reception- there's a reception every night of Fashion Week- is a quiet one; the prime-time slots, Monday through Wednesday evenings, are assigned to the top fashion houses, including Eleanor Waldorf Designs, whose collection will show tomorrow night.

So, most of the hand-wringing designers and their caffeinated staffs are in their studios, double-checking hemline evenness, pressing collars, polishing jewelry…

A style correspondent for _W_ magazine approaches Serena, compliments her on her chic outfit and refreshing makeup-free face, and tentatively asks if she has any juicy spoilers she can share about the Waldorf line.

…Reviewing models' cues for the hundredth time; tweaking their pacing, and reminding them to make sure they linger long enough on the platform; a warning bell going off in a distant part of her cranking mind, reminding her that this is unorthodox, and perhaps uncomfortable for the models, and maybe that's why they're having difficulty with the timing…

And Serena smiles and thanks her for the compliment on her appearance, and says, truthfully, that she doesn't have any idea about Eleanor Waldorf's collection, but she looks forward to seeing it, and she's sure it will be stunning, as it always is.

…but this is artistic inspiration, and it's a brand new way of presenting the platform moment, and she has to trust in her vision…

And the correspondent agrees, and transitions seamlessly into asking whether Serena thinks it might be possible that there's a chance Miss Blair Waldorf will attend her mother's show tomorrow night?

…and they run through the production once more before Eleanor calls it quits, thanking the models individually for their hard work and telling them to get some rest, and they slip gratefully into their coats, stifling yawns into palms, and shuffle past her and Laurel as they confer by the door…

And Serena falters, and pastes the smile back on her face after a momentary blankness, and gives a little shrug that could either be reticent or uninformed, and says that she can't offer any comment on whether they'll see Blair Waldorf tomorrow night.

…a row of dirty blondes, hair in unfinished, messy waves, spilling loose down their backs or brushing their shoulders in careless ponytails.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Hello to my beloved readers =) I am so sorry for the delay. Work has been especially brutal lately. However, there is a potential development on the horizon that could allow me a much more manageable quality of life (read: no more hundred-hour weeks!), which is completely thrilling – so please, if you would be so kind, cross your fingers for that!**

 **Without further ado, I present for your consideration: Chapter 21.**

i.

 _She can smell snow._

 _The air has that raw, wet undertone that promises snow is on the way._

 _Before she turned the corner, she looked behind her, thinking maybe, just-_

 _But he wasn't there._

 _And so she turned right, uptown, a blast of frigidity hitting her bluntly as she pivoted into its path. The air muted the heat on her cheeks and nose and she closed her eyes for a moment._

 _And when she inhaled, she could smell the snow._

 _She pauses again, halfway up the block, daring a quick glance behind her, a casual glance, without a hint of desperation._

 _And he's still not there._

 _Tears fill her eyes. She blinks them back- a single traitorous one makes a break for it and slips down her cheek- and when her vision clears, she sees a face she does know, and her heart stops._

 _Cadence Alexander, an Upper East Side darling a few years older whose family the Waldorfs have known socially for decades, is not twenty feet away, heading south into Blair's northward path. She's coming right at her._

 _Panic fills her. She swipes at the tear, which has probably already left a white streak on her face, it's so cold._

 _Cadence has not seen her. She's looking at her phone screen, lower lip caught between perfect white teeth, brow slightly knitted. If Blair had the ability to pay better attention, she might wonder what was bothering her._

 _In a few seconds, though, she will see her. Blair is nearly at the corner; Cadence is about to step into the crosswalk. And the thought of pasting on a gracious face and making small talk, even a few seconds of it, with role-model-material Cadence Alexander, today of_ all _days floods her with dread. And what if she wants to go for a drink-_

 _Cadence looks up at the crosswalk._

 _Blair turns, hand coming up to smooth her hair and block her face, and steps onto 77_ _th_ _. Mercifully, the WALK sign is lit up in white, a shining beacon. She steels herself in case Cadence somehow recognizes her from behind and calls out to her; she'll pretend she doesn't hear._

 _She makes it across as the DON'T WALK sign flips on, a foreboding orange, realizing she doesn't know where she's going. Turns, keeping her face away from the other side of Madison, in case Cadence is lingering on the opposite side of the street, and lets out a long sigh._

 _Even then, as her eyes brim hotter and fuller with tears, inexplicably, she feels the urge to turn, maybe to check that Cadence hasn't seen her at all- does Cadence read Gossip Girl?, she wonders briefly- but she resists._

 _Mark Bar is just down the street._

 _She'll stop in for a drink._

ii.

 _Monday, February 24_

Of course she saw it.

She knows Chuck was there; saw him in the front row, with Bart providing the other parenthesis around the Van der Woodsen trio.

The camera stayed focused on the runway, models in light gray and silver filling the frame, so she didn't get to see his face, or Serena's.

But she knows he saw it, too.

And on the phone that night, she notices how he waits for her to bring up that day's shows, and when she says she didn't see anything particularly mind-blowing, although some of the aesthetics are a little different than what she might have expected, he hesitates just a beat.

And she smiles sadly.

And after Serena is asked point-blank whether Blair will be attending her mother's show, when she's on the phone with Chuck talking about how Reem Acra's palette and necklines were uncharacteristically… violent… this season, she makes a point to casually mention that her physical therapist has advised against going out in public, particularly among crowds, since an accidental elbow could cause some damage.

It's a shame, she sighs.

Another beat.

Chuck says he agrees, but it's flat, like it always is when he knows she's lying.

iii.

This year, the Eleanor Waldorf Designs show takes the six o'clock slot on Monday, kicking off the "prime time" stretch of Fashion Week.

Serena and Erik hustle into Chuck's limo as soon as the last bell rings; they don't have much time to get back to The Palace, get changed and get to Bryant Park if they want to be there for pre-show mingling.

There's an odd pit in Chuck's stomach. Maybe he's worried that Blair will show up after all, a last-minute about-face, and become a media spectacle. Maybe he's worried that Serena will slip and say something stupid in the inevitable impromptu interviews that will be thrust upon her. Maybe he's worried that Eleanor will have heard about how much time he's been spending at the Waldorfs' and say something about it- well-intentioned, of course- in front of the family.

As if on cue, Serena, elbow resting on the sill of the tinted window, palm cradling the side of her head, slants her eyes toward him.

"I haven't seen Eleanor for ages," she remarks coolly.

He tilts his head and meets her gaze. "Neither have I."

Erik glances up, though his head remains bent over his phone.

Serena's mouth curves into chagrinned smile, tired rather than challenging, listless rather than indignant, and they mutually look away from each other.

The Van der Basses rendezvous in the lobby an hour later, Serena and Lily both dressed in classic Waldorf Couture: Serena's in soft green with a structured ruffle at the hem and a stiff, avant-garde tulip neckline that reaches her ears, like a feminine detective with collar popped; Lily in white, a drop-waisted midi dress sewn all over with silk snowdrops, green ribbon loops at their centers, and a band of wide green ribbon at the hip.

Chuck, Serena and Erik make for the door, but Chuck's ears, tuned to hear the Bass rumble that's so like his own, catch his father's low suggestion that they should just go get married right now, that Lily is perfection in her white dress. And, as Lily tugs him along behind her, her teasing reply that he's wearing argyle socks, and that's certainly not fit for a groom.

They barely see Eleanor before curtain; she buzzes up, her smile tight and anxious as usual, but there's a leaden quality even in the way she fusses. Thankfully, she doesn't spend much time on him, just gives him a quick embrace the way she does everyone else, and remarks absently that it's wonderful to see him.

As they're seated, Lily looks mournfully at the first chair.

She leans over to Serena. "I wish she'd come. She'd be surrounded by nothing but love."

Before Serena can reply, the house lights go down.

iv.

"That was nice," Bart offers.

Lily clears her throat, glancing down at her couture as though self-conscious.

"It certainly was a departure," she says, red lips curving into a neutral smile.

They're all getting to their feet; Serena and Chuck, at the end of the family lineup, linger on their chairs. Serena's hollow gaze is riveted on the empty runway. Chuck's eyes are on the floor, temples rippling.

"Charles? Serena?"

Serena closes her eyes briefly. She turns and looks at her mother, who has drifted toward the end of the row; Chuck doesn't move.

"We'll be along in a minute." She gives a small smile, and Erik steps away too.

Serena looks over at him. "Fuck," she whispers after a few seconds of fraught silence.

He meets her eyes. "Tell me about it."

"There's no way she didn't see this, right?"

He looks her in the eyes but doesn't bother to answer.

She rakes her hands through her hair. "These people… _sensationalizing_ her like this… I mean, the gown, I can sort of understand. But her own mother?"

"In her defense," Chuck says slowly, "not too many people grasp the connection."

It didn't take long for either of them to see it, though: just a few outfits in, relaxed tailoring, straight-cut pants cut too long so they scrunched at the ankles; wide-cut shift dresses with bateau or structured turtleneck collars; tapered midi-length pencil skirts paired with boxy, smocklike sweaters done in stiff fabric.

In a muted palette of faded blue, mauve heather, rusty maroon, dusty pink, faded moss, dove gray and mustard.

Pausing at the end of the runway in front of the object that had been placed there by two stagehands clad head-to-toe in black a few moments after the house lights went off, that made audience members crane their necks and whisper inquisitively to their seatmates.

A high-backed chair, it turned out, when the show lights came up.

And when the first look came down the runway, unkempt half-curled hair spilling over her shoulders, and slid effortlessly into the chair, pausing there as the photographers directly in front of the runway began, confusedly, to set off their flash bulbs – capturing the dirty blonde in a nondescript v-neck in an unremarkable shade, eased against the carved background (this one was white, at least), Serena's heart rate had steadily increased until she was almost panting, and her fingers hesitantly found Chuck's arm, and they shared a look of mutual horror.

Serena thankfully lets the chance to barb at him for his obvious knowledge of Blair's current appearance slide. The row of a dozen mannequin-Blairs trailing listlessly up and down the runway, photographed against what looks very much like Blair's headboard, sobers her hostility into silence.

When Eleanor comes out to a throng of supportive friends and fans, Chuck gets to his feet and says they need to go pay her their compliments. She nods sadly but doesn't move.

He holds his hand out to her, palm up, and says they'll get a drink after.

She squeezes her fingers while she stands up, and then pats his back in solidarity, like they're in this together.

v.

Blair is subdued when he calls her that night; she says she's tired. Her voice is hoarse, like she's been crying.

She doesn't bring up the show.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, timid as Serena was with her hand on his arm.

She clears her raspy throat. He remembers her in the hospital bed, sandpapery and flushed, shaking with post-hypothermia.

"I'm not," she says simply.

"Me neither," he says- flat, like always when he knows she's lying. There's a quick, one-syllable chuckle- _hmm_ \- on the other end.

vi.

 _Tuesday, February 5_

Her patient is not talkative today. Silence falls several times: Miss Waldorf will answer direct questions, but she seems quite unconcerned with talking any further about the events of the night they're meant to be discussing.

Not wanting to force the issue when they've clearly plateaued, Dr. Genove settles back in her seat.

"Have you watched many of the shows so far this week?" she tries.

Blair doesn't even glance up; she's not at all startled by the change in topic.

Like it was on her mind all the time.

"Yes," she replies.

"Anything of particular interest to you?"

Blair shrugs, but her mouth opens. Closes halfway; opens again, with an inhale.

"My mother's show was a real departure from her usual aesthetic."

"How so?"

Blair spares her a glance. This woman is chic and successful; there's almost no way she's not interested in fashion herself. But she'll humor the good doctor.

"Not very feminine. Not the classic silhouette. Different colors… less bright." Just one shoulder shrugs this time, like the other is preoccupied. "She's usually all about the fitted sheath dresses and the empire waists, sweetheart necklines, the works. Cocktail and formal attire and upscale career wardrobe. This time, it was..."

One hand comes up and pulls her turtleneck up her neck as though she's going to hide in it.

Wrinkles her nose.

"I'm not even sure where you'd wear some of it, in public," she finishes quietly.

And leans against her headboard, eyes drifting skyward.

"You didn't like it, then?"

Blair sidesteps the question. "When she came home, I congratulated her and told her it was beautiful. That I liked the modern angle, and the colors were like a Monet. 'Artistic genius.'"

Eleanor's bloodshot eyes misted when she said that.

Dr. Genove tilts her head appraisingly. "That's nice."

Blair leaned carefully in for her mother's hug, blinking flatly at nothing, Eleanor's cheek resting on top of her head warmly as she murmured thanks.

"Yes," Blair agrees. "It was."

Dr. Genove hides a sad smile behind the rim of her teacup. When she places it back into the saucer, she asks what, other than her mother, has been the most memorable collection she's seen this season?

Blair takes a slow, deep breath, mulling it over.

"Let's talk about that at the end of the week," she says. "Plenty more shows to go."

vii.

Lily loves Marc Jacobs, and she's been waiting for his show all week, she bubbles. Bart successfully begged off the rest of the shows until the farewell reception, citing that he can't leave the office at five that many days in a row, on the condition he attend this show with her.

(To be fair, he has attended five shows in three days, Erik points out when Lily mock-pouts to her children.)

Chuck wears a pink suit with a burgundy tie- why not?- and Serena is at his side in canary yellow, alongside her mother's tangerine brocade dress and matching long jacket. Bart eyes his son's outfit, looks down at his own charcoal gray, and nudges himself behind his fiancée as she and Marc kiss each other on both cheeks, sticking an arm around her to shake the designer's hand.

Lily's face is vibrant as she tells Marc in confidential tones that she's been looking forward to this for _months_ \- and what does he have in store?

He winks and says he couldn't bear to spoil the surprise at this stage in the game; kisses her hand extravagantly and says he'll see her after.

She mock-scowls at him.

Serena catches Chuck's eye and frowns.

"Agreed," he says under his breath.

To his credit, Marc Jacobs is more subtle than those who have come before him.

He's always been a fan of headwear, and this season is no exception: a three-point in velvet; a scroll-edge topper with a great plume.

A fascinator with a dramatic bow on top.

An equestrian hat with a scalloped edge and a rosebud on the side of the brim – a blue rose. Held in place with a blue hat pin.

Everywhere, blue.

A blue coat over ivory trousers; an oversized blue cameo at the gathered neck of a high-collar ivory lace blouse. Perfectly matched blue suede gloves and heeled boots accessorizing a sedate blue Oxford-style shirtdress.

Light blue.

Powder blue.

Mid-lineup, a model in monochromatic blue: slim-cut pants, sweater, beret.

As the drama begins to build, a frilly knee-length dress bounces underneath a blue peacoat, with an enormous blue hat with bobbing feathers and a tightly-wrapped blue veil over the model's face.

The camera comes partway up the runway to follow alongside this one, the Chuck watches it glide along next to her, wishing he could untether it from its livestream.

Lily leans over and whispers that there's "a bit of a French Revolution theme." Serena nods back dejectedly.

Followed by an ivory silk scarf draped like a hood, adorning a blue lace jumpsuit.

Blue-beaded collars and cuffs; a giant blue ascot, tied to one side in dramatic fashion on a sedate white button-down.

In the eveningwear section, a gown with a portrait neckline, long fitted sleeves and a tapered bodice- no puffy petticoat, thank God- in what could be described as no other shade than French blue.

At the end of the runway, the model pulls as if from nowhere- a hidden pocket, maybe?- a large blue fan, snaps it open with a dramatic crack, and poses with it raised opposite her profile.

Erik understood it at Abaete, though he said nothing; he didn't know the details, but got the picture at Eleanor's show; and now he sighs, long and low, and catches Chuck's eye.

Marc takes the runway, dressed in the usual designer's outfit of black and white, to a standing ovation. He returns the applause, gesturing to the audience as if to give them the credit.

Like this is all because of them.

He bows his head, raises his clapping hands higher, as cheers go up from his fans.

"Drink," Serena says in his ear, more of a plea than a suggestion.

viii.

She drinks three glasses of champagne before the next show- Betsey Johnson, which Lily, Bart and Erik aren't attending- and when her empty stomach growls, he teasingly asks if she'd like a fourth.

"No," she shrugs, "I'm meeting Dan for dinner after."

Great. Three champagnes on an empty stomach.

He plucks an ice water from a passing tray and hands it to her. "You'll need to sober up, then," he chides.

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly but drinks it down.

Without saying it, they're both hoping that there won't be any nasty surprises in Betsey Johnson's lineup. When they make their way to their third-row seats, Serena asks if he also makes sport of identifying his conquests' lingerie: "Like, 'oh, is this Betsey Johnson?'"

He smirks. "Rule number one, sis: Once you've made the sale, stop selling. When they're half naked and you're raring to go is not the time to confuse Agent Provocateur with Betsey Johnson."

Mock-crying, Serena buries her face in her hands.

"Don't be such an amateur," he teases, and she elbows him as the house lights dim.

The collection is, thankfully, not recognizably based on anything Blair-reminiscent. It's typical Betsey Johnson: edgy, spunky, unabashedly sexy and aggressively feminine. Lace-up tops and bright micro-minis with platform boots; classy leopard-print leggings with an oversized button-down and big sunglasses; a shorts-and-corset romper under a polka dot bolero; patterned fishnets and spiked heels with soft ruffled negligees; a French-cut bikini in purple with fringe and a gold belly chain.

He eyes the camera, which stays rooted at the end of the runway the entire time, moving back and forth to capture the models as they pose. He wonders if she's watching; hopes, in a way, that she is, that she didn't turn off the feed after Marc Jacobs; so she'll see that not everyone is making a sideshow of her.

Serena sparkles on the edge of her seat just like Lily did an hour ago. He can read in the happy lines of her face that she's finally, just for a few minutes, taking a break from the mental torture of the last few weeks.

At the end of the show, she shoots to her feet and he stands with her, applauding, and means it.

ix.

Chuck returns the cheek-kiss from one of the Betsey Johnson models- _whoops_ ; he forgot he knew her- still in her final outfit (leggings and sunglasses; he blames them for obscuring her face) and fresh off the runway high.

"How have you been?" she starts to ask, but is then accosted by a socialite that she apparently knows, and has to stop so she can accept the flurry of compliments.

Serena rolls her eyes at him.

"I'll have you know that we shared a very special night together," Chuck informs her. "Her last name is Saxe, thank you very much."

He's saved from her retort when the model turns back, but it's not him she turns toward.

"You're Serena Van der Woodsen, right?"

It's rhetorical.

"I am; it's great to meet you. You are?" Serena extends a hand.

"Havolynne." She glances at Chuck when she says it.

Now it's his turn to roll his eyes.

"There are pictures of you all over our dressing room," Havolynne says to Serena.

That stuns them both into silence. Serena's smile falters. "I'm sorry?"

"Pictures of you!" Havolynne repeats, louder, though it's clear that the din isn't drowning her out. "All over." She lowers her voice. "I think you were quite an inspiration for this season's collection."

Serena withdraws her hand. "Oh, that's very sweet, but I'm sure- "

"Are you guys coming to the afterparty?"

Chuck opens his mouth with a smile on his face, but Serena cuts in: "I actually have- "

"I'm sure the other girls would _love_ to meet you," Havolynne bubbles on. "If you can't stay, do you want to just pop backstage and say hello?"

Her genuine face- she's a well-meaning Southern belle, Chuck remembers- seems to endear her to Serena.

"Maybe just for a minute," she allows, and turns to him: "Are you staying for the afterparty?"

"You know how much I love fashion."

He watches as Havolynne links her arm through Serena's and leads her away, auburn head tilting toward blonde one. He has a half hour while they turn over the space for the party, which is a loose term for when the models and younger VIP attendees of the last show of the night stay after and drink; more civilized hobknobbing is taken across the street to the Bryant Park Hotel.

He steps outside.

x.

He's waiting for Serena to arrive back at The Palace for their date; the bar at Divine is running coverage of Fashion Week- which, given it's nothing like the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, he's sure the straight male bartenders just _love_ \- but he sees the finish of the Betsey Johnson show, which Serena said was one of her favorites and not to be missed.

She'll meet him after for dinner.

He's trying to pace himself- this is his third ice water, but they splashed some lime and a sprig of mint in this time- but he's hungry. He's checking his watch and eyeing the entrance every few minutes. She said she was wearing one of her favorite dresses to the shows tonight, and he'd replied that he couldn't wait to see it.

She seemed happy.

So he was happy.

The Betsey Johnson show ended a half hour ago, though, and she hasn't arrived; it's not that far away.

But, he reasons, taking another sip, Fashion Week traffic in Midtown can probably be a nightmare.

xi.

"How's the weather?" Blair asks him at a whisper.

"It sucks."

She sounds strangled. "Betsey Johnson was a nice show, wasn't it?"

She doesn't really like Betsey Johnson. It's not her taste.

"Sure."

"They…" she clears her throat and tries to sound perkier. "They have good champagne there?"

He shuts his eyes, shivering in the thirty-degree weather because he stepped out to call her without his coat on.

"Blair…"

"Don't," she insists. "Just tell me about the champagne."

He pauses. "It sucks."

"Everything sucks, then?" He can hear a slight smile. "Weather? Champagne?"

"Yes. And I'm even wearing pink, which we both know isn't my color. What was I thinking?"

She actually giggles. "Company?"

"Serena's here somewhere," he offers.

"That's nice, at least. No Erik?"

"Lily says he's too young for Betsey Johnson."

"Most people are too young for Betsey Johnson," Blair teases.

He smiles. Licks his lips. "Would you want some company?"

She pauses. "I want you to have fun at the party."

She doesn't say: _For both of us._

"I always have fun," he says, trying to ignore the misery of watching Blair-symbolism parading down runways in front of him, and having to applaud for it.

She ignores it, too. "Maybe call me later and tell me how the party was, if you're not… busy?"

 _(… with a model?)_

"Will do. Spoiler alert: I'm guessing it will suck."

A quick chuckle. "Obviously."

xii.

The special coverage of Fashion Week jumps from pre-recorded interviews with models, stylists and production leads to live shots with on-site correspondents at Bryant Park, milling inside and out and asking bystanders for interviews. The television behind the bar is muted; it was on surround-sound during the shows, but now the restaurant speakers are alive with ambient jazz again.

She's still not here. No call, no text.

He's declined a fourth water and is chewing on his sprig of mint.

Without warning, the screen shifts from the dazzling twinkle lights strung around the canopy of Bryant Park to a scene inside, where a crew in head-to-toe black is clearing away the chairs and the cater-waiters are making their last rounds before the place switches to bar service only. A correspondent is talking animatedly, soundlessly, to a model in a cobalt blue minidress with a massive bow in her hair. The model answers pensively, seriously; the anchor nods along, expression melting into seriousness as the model provides insights on how, as the subtitles say, _Some people might not see fashion as art, but for those of us in this world, and for Betsey Johnson, it really is, and we're proud to be the ambassadors that bring her brand to life in the runway…_

He glances down at his black pants and white button-up.

When he looks back up, his eyes flick straight past the subtitles and to a girl in the background… tall, gorgeous, blue-eyed, with a mane of blonde hair that she's gently uncoiling from its high bun on top of her head.

She's wearing- not a dress that's one of her favorites- but a short black robe- _very_ short- that matches what the other models in the frame are wearing, including the one who's now talking about how _fashion is the art of the future, and someday- who knows- there might not even_ be _paintings and sculpture-_

And she's trading one of the cater-waiters her empty champagne flute for the last full one on his tray.

She smiles at him flirtatiously, lifting one shoulder and peeping at him over it as she turns away and disappears, with a bit of a stumble in her sky-high spiked heels, behind a white wall that he guesses, based on its proximity to the runway in the now-chairless tent, is backstage.

He glances at his phone one last time as he gets to his feet, tossing a cash tip on the bar for his waters.

xiii.

Chuck heads back inside when the crowd sounds a little livelier; he's always hated to be seen at a lame party. The crush of bodies around the bar is thick. As he gets closer, he looks around for Serena, forgetting for a brief moment that her height is not such an anomaly here: the room is full of tall, willowy young women. Still, her blonde topknot should put her a cut above most-

No sign of her, though. He checks his phone; nothing. Hopefully she left for her dinner with Humphrey without having anything else to drink and without being upset by whatever photos of her are backstage.

Speaking of-

He glances toward the dressing room, obscured as it is by a white wall and security guards that don't seem to go off-duty.

"What'll it be tonight?" The bartender, petite, caramel-skinned and beautiful, smiles up at him.

One more glance; no Serena.

"Scotch, please."

xiv.

"Sir, if you don't have a VIP pass- "

The bouncer holds up his hands and shakes his head.

Dan swallows back his frustration.

"I- look, I just need to get in there for _one minute_."

The bouncer looks at him skeptically.

"I need to find someone." He bites his lip; a minute shake of the head. "My girlfriend."

The guy actually scoffs. "What, she's one of the models?"

 _She's better._

Dan glares at him. "No; she was attending the show."

"And you didn't go with her?" He tsk-tsks.

Dan fights back a wave of anger. The guy wants to play with him now?

"No. I didn't. We were supposed to meet for dinner afterward."

"She doesn't have a cell phone?"

He grips his own in his pocket. 'She doesn't want to answer it' seems like the wrong thing to admit right now.

"Listen, I just need to speak to her- "

He steps forward; the bouncer stands firmly.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I- " Dan leans forward against him, just for a moment, but it's more like a slump. "I… I got invited to the Met Gala," he tries, his own pathetic words whining in his ears.

"What?" the bouncer snaps, and gives him a little shove. He shakes his head with finality. "You'll have to wait out here. I can't guarantee which entrance she'll come out, either." He nods over his shoulder, indicating she might come out of some other door.

He steps back before he makes a scene; that's all he needs right now; and turns and walks away.

xv.

Chuck drifts through the crowd, quietly pleased to find that he sees no one else he knows. There's always a risk of running into a scornful former bedmate at functions that bring together so many beautiful young women.

The music is loud, amplifiers blaring the deep thrum of bass and the fast-paced electronic dance music that tends to accompany Fashion Week parties. Since there are no more waiters, partygoers drift between bar and dance floor as they please, with everyone from stylists in skinny jeans and black button-downs to editors in chic, on-trend outfits to models from other shows, recognizable by their afterthought-looking outfits (whatever they threw in their bag before leaving this morning) and hairspray-frozen hair.

He actually hates sleeping with models right after a show; their makeup and hairspray stain his pillows. He learned the hard way that the key is to ask them out for for the following night, when their hair will be clean.

But he finds himself deliberately slotting his gaze in other directions, deliberately avoiding eye contact and giving a polite nod before turning away when a female gaze lingers on him.

He hasn't touched a girl since it happened. Not since Cadence.

And, quite frankly, he doesn't want to.

There's a stirring in his heart when he admits this privately to himself, a warning that he needs to get out of this funk and be himself- that there's nothing _wrong_ with having a little fun- and he keeps reminding himself of that.

But somehow, recently, the thought of an indulgent tumble with a beautiful stranger doesn't sound as fun as it ordinarily would.

As if on cue, just as he's thinking that Havolynne might be the only female here that he knows- though he hasn't seen her since she disappeared with Serena an hour or so ago- a familiar face materializes right in front of him.

"Remember me?"

Black hair; olive skin.

"Jessica, right?"

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself.

Her name is Jennifer and he _knows_ that.

He wants for the scoff.

"Jennifer," she corrects.

No such luck.

"Right," he says, trying to sound disinterested, although that's a bit difficult when his normal tone sounds disinterested. "I trust you're well?"

"Pretty well," she says. "Opening Hermes tomorrow night."

That explains the no-makeup-but-mascara and simple spaghetti strap dress. Hair brushed, shiny and draped over one shoulder.

He holds up his Scotch in toast. "Congratulations."

She clinks excitedly, starting to say "Thanks," but the word is overpowered by the exquisite boom of a new song, the vibrations from the speakers so powerful that he feels it in his chest. Someone clearly cranked the bass and set the volume to full blast. He cringes; Jennifer frowns. They both look around.

She smiles briefly before channeling her effort into speaking loudly enough for him to hear: "How have you been?"

"Great," he lies, looking away.

"I just got back from Italy last week," she says. "I was actually working with an agency there as well- "

Not that he was interested before, but her voice completely fades into oblivion when he sees what's happening behind her. The models from the Betsey Johnson show, none of whom have emerged to join the noisy party that's happening just beyond the definitely-not-soundproof wall of their dressing room, are making their way out from backstage onto the runway.

They're wearing matching black robes – short, with bell sleeves – and stilettoes. And dancing, somewhat haphazardly given an obvious level of intoxication.

And the partygoers are applauding.

And Serena is seventh among the models; directly in the middle of the twelve-girl lineup.

No sooner are they all positioned along the runway, glancing back and forth to make sure they're all in place- _what, did they rehearse this?_ he wonders absently- they all make a show of untying the loose bows at their waists, and off come the robes.

And a roar goes up from the crowd.

Jennifer turns around to glance over her shoulder at the spectacle and looks back with an eyeroll. "A bit immature," she says good-naturedly.

Serena is smiling, sparkling; the way she closes her eyes, the sumptuousness with which she moves her hips- and he can see _far_ too much of her hips for his liking- smacks of a very specific Serena.

A Serena he once knew.

"I agree," he says. "Excuse me."

xvi.

He tries to get her attention, but it's way too loud and she's not even living in the same world he is right now.

All the other girls are working models; most of them have just been photographed in lingerie and high heels for all the world to see.

Serena is different. She's a well-bred Ivy legacy and her mother would die if she saw her like this.

And here she is, in black fishnets with gleaming brass-hooked garters, black satin panties and a black lace babydoll with three gold bows down the front which is- thank God- opaque in the cups.

He glances around; luckily, no one seems to be taking photographs. The journalists, corralled into the press area as the official coverage ended, must have all gone home.

When he looks back at her, hissing her name again- she ignores or does not hear him; her eyes are still closed- she's slipping one bow open, just above her navel.

His mouth goes dry.

He pushes past the few people in front of him.

"Serena- "

He reaches for her hand. He doesn't want to draw attention to her more than she's doing to herself.

Her hands move above her head, though, fingertips trailing down the opposite bare arm, then raking into her hair and fluffing it up, looking out into the crowd for a moment before closing her eyes again.

"Van der Woodsen," he shouts, inaudible above the din. He's certainly not going to reach for her basically-bare leg.

When she puts her hands down, he reaches again, and brushes her fingers. She blinks, looks at the person next to her and then down.

When she looks at him, he sees that her eyes are massively dilated.

"Fuck," he whispers under his breath.

She blinks rapidly, almost squinting under the bright lights beating down on her, and then shuts her eyes and takes a step back, beyond his reach.

She settles her head back again, face lifted heavenward, hips swaying dangerously, not in time to the music the rest of the room hears but to whatever is playing in her own head. Her fingertips skim over her own thighs, and then down her ribcage to her waist, and pluck at the upper band of her panties, the gesture suggestive, and finally back up to untie the second bow out of three, as her hips sway- not overtly sexually, but in a slow, subtle way that's probably mouthwatering for every straight guy in the room. Except him.

And one other.

Humphrey is on him before he even hears him; he doesn't seem to realize who Chuck is, just shoves him, hard, out of the way and steps up.

"Serena!"

So much for not making a scene.

Dan clambers onto the runway beside Serena, grabbing her by the arms, and she blinks confusedly at him, the smile draining from her face.

She struggles back, but his grip is firm.

"Fuck off" is the first thing she says to him; Chuck can't hear her, but can read her lips.

Dan falters, but doesn't give up. "Come on," he yells at her.

For once, Chuck agrees with Brooklyn.

He reaches up for her, too, to give her a hand down from the runway.

Comically, Serena yanks her arm, hard, away from Dan and then places her hand in his, as though showing that this is her decision and not his. When she sees Chuck's hand, she takes it, expression darkening.

She steps down, landing lightly, and as Dan and Chuck guide her partway through the crowd, she's being clapped on the back, partygoers extending their applauding hands in front of her to show their appreciation, whistling and cheering and a few of them booing Dan.

After a few moments, she rears back from Dan and stares at him hotly. "What are you doing here?"

He gapes. "What am _I-_ what am _I-_ Serena, what are _you_ doing here? You were supposed to meet me for dinner an hour ago, and I find you here? And doing…"

She's squinting, again, which seems to irritate her further.

"Dan, it's a free country. I can do whatever I…"

She shuts her eyes, clapping a hand over them.

Chuck nudges her. "Come on, let's get you away from the lights."

She shoves at him, but doesn't argue, and takes off, half a head taller than both of them. He glances down; she's wearing runway shoes, easily six inches.

No sooner is he wondering at how she's not stumbled yet than she does, losing her balance when she jostles against someone, having shrugged off both sets of hands that tried to guide her. Dan catches her. She's come out of one shoe, and carelessly flicks her foot to get rid of the other one, bringing her eye-level with her boyfriend when she whirls on him.

"Can't you just leave me alone?" she pleads, loud, dramatic.

He falters again, swallowing visibly. "Is that- is that what you want, for me to leave you alone?" He's angry, but Chuck can see, in the relative dimness away from the stage, the vulnerability in his face.

"I want to… I want to be free to make my own choices," she insists, not sounding particularly coherent. "I want…" she tips her head back again, closing her eyes. Serena the Prophet, who is very nearly naked in public. "I want to be with someone who has their own life and isn't constantly following me around."

"Serena," Chuck tries. She has a point, but this is not the time or place. Or state of mind.

She turns. "Don't get me started on you," she says, dilated eyes holding his, blinking frantically. "Think you're so sly, don't you. Think you've got everyone fooled."

They aren't questions.

She steps closer. "You don't fool me."

He tries to bite down his temper, but one slips out: "Fine. You want to hear I'm spending time with her? I'm spending time with her. Yes. Okay?"

Her face twists into a scowl. "Oh, the Honest Chuck Bass."

Dan chooses the wrong moment to touch her. "Serena, you need to come with me," he urges, grabbing her by both arms and trying to turn her toward him again.

"Don't _touch_ me," she hisses, yanking her hands away.

She steps back and, before Chuck knows what she's doing, she slaps Dan clean across the face.

"Get a life and stop trying to control mine."

Humphrey is covering the blush-colored splotch on his cheekbone. He swallows, lips parted, as Serena turns and stalks away.

Chuck moves to go after her; Dan is right behind him.

He turns, and puts a hand on Brooklyn's chest.

"Best if you stay out of it for now," he says, low and serious. No mockery. "You don't know her like this."

He gives him a light, final shove backward.

xvii.

He catches Serena walking down 40th, opposite traffic – _where the hell is she going?_ – and rushes after her, grabbing his coat at record speed and not bothering to put it on.

Luckily, the bouncers stopped admitting attendees ages ago, and few people seem to be out. But this is open water; a reporter or blogger is bound to be close by. He has to get her covered up and out of sight before this winds up on Page Six or worse, someone at the Bryant Park Hotel across the street calls Bart or Lily.

"Serena." She can hear him; he knows it. Louder: " _Serena_."

She turns, flinging her arms wide, messy blonde mane flying out around her and settling. She continues walking, backward now, and stumbles a little.

"What?"

"Let's go home."

"To your hotel, you mean? That's not home." She hisses a little; must have stepped on something sharp. She's only in fishnets now.

And a half-untied lace babydoll.

"Wherever you want," he concedes. He glances around; he texted Arthur _need you now_ as he waited the ten seconds to get his coat, and mercifully, he sees the limo pulling up in the background.

"I want to go to Blair's," she says, "because that's the only place I don't hate myself."

Arthur pulls to a stop and puts on his hazards.

She shrugs, arms and all. "But I can't."

He sees before she trips that she's going to; the sidewalk is uneven. Majestic tree roots and all.

"Serena-"

Too late. She yelps on the way down and lands with a sharp wince.

He sighs. Extends a hand. Reluctantly, she lets him pull her to her feet.

"Put this on." He holds out his coat.

"No," she says, but she sounds like a child.

"Making a spectacle of yourself isn't going to help her, you know," he says, stepping closer.

"I've given up on helping her. She doesn't want me. So I might as well try to have some fun."

He smirks, and dips his head so she'll meet his eyes. "Is this fun?" She glares and nods at the tent.

"That was."

"Come on," he tries again. "You've put this stuff behind you."

She lets him lead her to the limo; with one last longing glance, she slips inside.

xviii.

Dan watches as Chuck's hand falls to Serena's lower back, bringing an arm up to steady her as she balances on one foot to get into the limo.

She doesn't look for him.

Chuck exhales visibly, mist pouring from his mouth, before he folds himself in after her.

Neither does he.

xix.

Chuck raises the partition as they turn onto 6th Avenue, to make a long U-turn around Bryant Park.

When they turn west onto 42nd, he licks his lips.

"How much?"

Serena exhales angrily through her nose, head lolling away, like when Serena Doesn't Want To Talk About It.

"Who cares?"

He restrains himself from grabbing her wrist, which would be counterproductive. "Serena. It's been a while. At least as far as I'm aware." He watches her closely; the corner of her mouth turns up in recognition. "How much?"

She holds up one finger, still looking away.

"Just one line?"

She nods.

He wraps his hand around her finger. "Look at me, please," he whispers.

Reluctantly, she shifts lower, her head against the back of the seat, and looks up at him.

"How much did you drink?"

"Four… five champagnes. And a few sips of vodka."

He's calculating in his head.

"I'm fine," she says.

She probably is.

She's done her fair share of cocaine before, but not for a long time. Mixing coke and alcohol is a no-go; that's Body Chemistry 101.

Serena got alcohol poisoning once, and it was not pretty.

He lets go of her finger and holds his hand up to her forehead, silently asking permission. She closes her eyes.

No fever.

"We'll eat and get some water and you should be okay," he says. She can't go home on coke; Lily will figure it out at once if they cross paths.

Not to mention she's in underwear.

He emails Kathryn to ask her to please send two dinners- anything- to his suite ASAP. He doesn't need to ask Arthur to take them into the garage.

Silence falls as they crawl across town. How is traffic this serious at 11PM on a Monday- even during Fashion Week?

Out of nowhere, Serena says: "I'm not trying to get her to rescue me."

"I don't care what you're doing. I just want you to stop before you get hurt."

Arthur turns left, just before the light goes red, and they start to pick up speed as they climb north on Madison.

"I feel…" she pauses and swallows wetly. "I feel evil. I feel like a terrible person. Horrible. I don't know what to… nothing seems to fix it for long."

He looks at her, watching as stripes of streetlamps flash through the window and illuminate her tortured face.

He slides down so they're level, hips coming to the edge of the seat.

"I know," he says.

"I can't make it go away. I hate myself," she confesses, barely audible. Without turning her head: "Do you ever feel like that?"

The corner of his mouth twitches as he shuts his eyes and tips his head back. "Why do you think I fuck every girl I see? For the pleasure of sexual orgasm?"

He feels her glance over at him, but doesn't move. At this angle, the streetlights are flashing on him, too, against his closed eyelids.

Serena closes her eyes and tips her head back.

Chuck drops his coat over her without looking.

She pulls it up to her chin like a blanket.

xx.

He goes out of the elevator first to make sure the coast is clear, and it is. He beckons her, and out she comes: torn wet fishnets and a black wool coat that she drapes over her shoulders without putting her arms through the sleeves so she can clench the front closed with both hands from inside.

"I'll probably be fine in an hour or two," she says when they get inside, still clutching the coat around her as if she's finally realized it's Chuck she's been half-naked in front of.

"You can go home then."

They both know she won't go home that late. It's better for her to not go home at all and tell Lily she's sleeping at a friend's house than to arrive past midnight.

He finds her a pair of lounge pants and a thick, unsexy sweater- pretending he doesn't even see the more comfortable options, the softer ones that are associated with Blair in some way, as he quickly searches his closet.

Just as she closes the bathroom door, his bell rings with their dinner.

Kathryn sent up tea service as well. That woman has a sixth sense.

He dials Blair, as promised, praying he doesn't wake her. He's heard the shrill brrrrrringggggg of her bedside phone, and wouldn't wish that alarm clock on anyone.

She answers, voice clear and hopeful.

"How was the party?"

He eyes the bathroom door.

Smiles.

"As predicted. It sucked."

She laughs lightly, like she does when she's sleepy. A relaxed sigh. "I'm so excited for…"

She catches herself, before remembering that she's not talking about that.

"For?"

"Carolina Herrera," she confides. "Tomorrow."

A quarter of Blair's (non-lingerie) wardrobe is probably Carolina Herrera.

"Me, too," he says drily.

"You don't wear Carolina Herrera," she retorts.

"That is not true; I use her perfumes."

She snickers into the phone. "Shut up." Then she turns serious. "So, really- the party wasn't fun?"

"I'm home before 11:30. You do the math."

She sounds relieved. "Maybe next year, it will be better."

There's a faint question mark at the end of the sentence.

"Definitely," he confirms. "It's a weak year."

When he hears the shower turn off, he tells Blair his dinner is here.

She whispers goodnight.

After Serena is showered and pajamaed and fed and hydrated, he grabs his spare down comforter from the closet and his two pillows and starts to set up the sofa.

"No," Serena says, seeing what he's doing. "You don't have to."

He holds up a hand to silence her. "If you vomit in my bed, Van der Woodsen, you're getting me a new one and it's coming out of your shoe allowance."

She smiles a small smile. "Deal."

He kills the lights and tells her goodnight.

He's exhausted, and already fading less than a minute after he lies down, when he hears Serena sit up on his bed.

"Chuck?"

He opens his eyes and looks at the ceiling.

"Yeah."

She pauses. "I'm jealous of you. And…" she sighs, quietly, to herself. "I'm really sorry."

He pushes a hand through his hair. "I know. Go to sleep."

There's a few seconds of silence, and he thinks she's going to say something else, but then there's a soft rustle as she curls up under the comforter.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: Thank you all so much for your patience and enthusiasm for this story. I'm pleased to welcome a few new readers since last chapter, and I'm so grateful to every single one of you for taking the time to read, review and PM. I love you all. XOXO.**

i.

 _She realizes as her shoes find the sidewalk that she's been feeling it for a few minutes now. That it registered in her quietly, even as she got to her feet in Mark Bar, but the sensations of walking out into the wet chill with her hand tucked into his arm distracted her from it then._

 _It starts to expand now, pressing on her joints, curling around the rims of her ears._

 _She's tired._

 _She pushes it off, shuffles to keep up with him, with the new urgency in his gait as he strains forward to track the sound of the child he hears crying._

 _There- was that it?-_

 _She squints into the fuzzy darkness of the Park. She might have heard something just then; she nods when he glances over at her for confirmation._

 _She would probably be able to hear better if she wasn't so tired._

 _Which is fair. It's been a long day._

 _Even as she falters, slowing in spite of herself, he squeezes her arm against his side. Pats her curled fingers with his free hand._

 _She forces herself upright and quickens her step, straining harder to hear. She doesn't want him to think she doesn't care about a maybe-lost child. Like she told him a few moments ago, before crossing Fifth Avenue on his arm, they're in this together._

ii.

 _Wednesday, February 6_

"What was it like to find her?"

He sighs inwardly. Serena doesn't want to move; doesn't want to go to school, clearly – given it's 10:15 and she's still in her borrowed pajamas – and doesn't want to do anything but ask quietly probing questions about those first agonizing hours.

They're sitting across from each other on his love seats, having coffee and avoiding each other's eyes, while sunlight floods his suite. It's easily the brightest day all winter.

He takes a long sip.

"It was late," he says, "and snowing."

Serena waits, and then, when it's clear that's all he'll volunteer: "But what was it _like_?"

She sees his mouth tighten; brow tense, just for a moment. He blinks several times in rapt succession, eyes focused on the contents of the mug cradled in his palms.

She stays very still, wondering for a terrifying moment if he's about to cry.

He parts his lips, and her own eyes prick hotly.

"A nightmare," he says, softly, and with finality.

Her vision blurs. "But thank God you did," she offers, thankful for the unexpected distraction of gratitude to focus on, for the unexpected vulnerability in his face. She swallows, using the sleeve of her (his) sweater to swipe at her mascara-less eyes, and sits up. "Do you ever think about what might have happened if you weren't out?"

" _Incessantly"_ is the honest answer to that question.

But he doesn't want to talk about this anymore, so he says: "I'd rather not," which is also an honest answer.

"How l…" Serena stumbles, swallows down the lump in her throat, barreling on despite his discomfort and her own, "How long was it before you realized… what happened?"

He looks her in the eye then, gaze hot and jaw set.

 _Where are your stockings, Blair?_

Serena's heart flips when Chuck's nose grows pink, not knowing that he can feel the scrape of dried blood on his fingertips, the memory of the moment that he realized the skin he was touching was bare and stockingless filling his eyes with tears on the instant.

Serena swallows, shifting forward, setting down her coffee cup, murmuring his name, sorry and low-

"The doctor told her," he says, breaking eye contact.

Serena falters, tangled hair falling forward, fists easing up from where they dug into the cushion behind her, propelling herself toward him. "She didn't remember on her own?"

He can't tell her, about those horrible moments, kicking her foot out from under the blanket when she grew too hot – twisting to see what was on her leg – the morbid twist on a classic Waldorf-Bass standoff, and _it says…_

He shrugs in what he hopes appears a convincing denial. "It didn't look like it."

 _Oh._

 _Right._

"How bad was her memory loss?"

He stifles an eyeroll at Serena's budding curiosity. "I'm not sure, honestly."

Serena's looking away, too, at the floor, mouth twisted.

"She was torn… during the exam, she was…" Serena waves a hand vaguely over her lap, oblivious to the way Chuck's head snaps over to look at her, and then she glances up and says, "Don't tell anyone that."

He closes his eyes against a fresh wave of fury. "I'll be doing my best to forget it, don't worry." He gets to his feet before she shares or asks anything further. "Care for a shot of Bailey's?"

"God, yes. I thought you'd never ask." She hands him her half-empty cup and flops sideways, stretching her legs and propping her feet on the opposite armrest.

He's placing both their mugs on the bar when the doorbell rings.

He looks through the peep hole, not bothering to quiet his movements, and comes back into the suite without opening the door.

Serena's blue eyes, wide in her upside-down face where it hangs from the armrest near the kitchen, wait.

"It's for you," he says, and pours out their lukewarm coffee, reaching for the French press.

iii.

Nate gives a skeptical look.

"Stop trying to stir things up," he hisses, with more confidence than he feels.

Penelope doesn't even look irked at his accusation. She's looking pale, he notices; less makeup, maybe. Her face looks thinner, but it could just be less blush or powder or whatever girls wear. Her hair is in a ponytail with no headband.

"I'm not." She's just as flat. "I'm seriously asking you if she's okay."

"Of course she is," he dismisses. "It's bullshit gossip like this that makes people not okay, you know."

She looks around, bored of his lecturing, and her shoulders tighten as she steps a little closer. She cornered him alone in the courtyard – not on the steps where everyone would see; not in a crowded hall or in the library with prying ears.

She looks into his eyes. "Look, I haven't told anyone else. And I'm not going to. I just…" she glances away and swallows. "It would be understandable, given… everything."

"She's fine," he cuts her off. "And it's none of your business."

He turns to go, but she catches his sleeve.

Her eyes are shining with tears when he looks at her.

"She's my friend," she whispers. "They- they both are."

His eyes darken. He scoffs in disbelief. Pulls his arm away. "You don't even know what that means."

iv.

Chuck excuses himself to take a shower, taking his coffee with him, while Humphrey stands around fidgeting and Serena drags herself upright.

"Mugs are in the cupboard above the blender," he drawls to Dan as he slides past.

Serena, dripping sarcasm: "Thank you, Chuck."

He smirks to himself, shutting his bathroom door, and turns the water all the way up.

In his sitting room, It Girl and Lonely Boy regard each other wearily.

"I'm sorry about last night," Serena starts after a brief silence.

Dan nods slowly, searching her face. "Do you even remember last night?"

"Yes," she says, defensively, though it's not completely true.

He holds up the bundle he brought in, which she hasn't noticed before now. "I brought your coat."

He drops it over the back of one of the high chairs at the bar and spends a few long moments observing 1812: bed unmade, with pillows only on one side; duvet mashed against one end of the love seat opposite Serena, two pillows mashed with equal ferocity into the opposite corner.

Her eyes track the movement; she becomes aware, suddenly, that though there's nothing to hide, he has nonetheless found her in Chuck's suite, in Chuck's clothes.

"Thank you," she says quietly.

"I know you've been lying to me," he says in return.

She blinks up at him.

"A lot," he adds.

"I had too much to drink-"

"Several times a day for the past few weeks? No." He shakes his head.

She closes her mouth. Licks her lips.

"You're right," she says simply. "You're right, and I'm wrong. I was wrong."

Dan steps toward her; she gestures for him to sit, but he stays on his feet.

"Why are you here, Serena?" Her blue eyes flit over his face. "Why did you sleep at Chuck's? Why didn't you go home?"

"It was late…"

"It wasn't that late." He shakes his head; that isn't what he meant. "I mean, if you needed to be with someone, why are you with someone else instead of me?"

"I don't…" She shrugs listlessly, not like she doesn't care but like she doesn't understand it herself, although it's affected and she hopes he doesn't see that. "I don't know. We've all been friends for a long time, and with everything that's happened…"

His exasperation, his worry, slips into his words: "What, you're circling the wagons?"

"Maybe," she murmurs, helplessly.

He watches her carefully. "Last night, Chuck stopped me when I was about to follow you out. He said, 'you don't know her like this.'"

She doesn't flinch.

"What did he mean, Serena?"

She clears her throat slowly. "When I'm struggling with something and I drink, I don't know my limits. I don't make good decisions."

He does ease down next to her now, movements mechanical. He reaches for her face and gently tips her chin up so she looks at him. "Is that all he meant?"

"Yes," she replies without hesitation, and then: "I'm sorry, Dan."

"I know you are." His thumb traces her jawline, and she's startled to see, for the second time in thirty minutes, a man in her life welling with tears. "You told me last night that you wanted me to leave you alone- "

"I didn't mean that," she insists.

"You told me to fuck off."

Shaking her head vehemently, she cups his face in both hands. "I didn't mean any of that. That's what I mean – I drink too much, I get out of control, I –" she's tracing him now, thumbs over his brows, his lips, "I say things I don't mean. That's what Chuck was referring to."

"I just want the truth, Serena," he says, quietly. "If you don't want me around, then tell me that. Please."

"I do," she breathes, moving closer to him, suddenly, tears falling unbidden down her own cheeks, pressing her mouth hotly against his. "I do, I do, I love you," the words spill out with urgency. She's practically on his lap when he pulls back.

"We can't do this here," he murmurs, brushing her hair out of her face.

She nods in agreement, smiling a watery smile, and whispers in his ear that Lily is at the salon, and then off to a luncheon that should keep her out of the house until at least mid-afternoon, glancing furtively over their heads to indicate the Van Der Woodsen suite just three floors above.

As if on cue, the hum of the shower swishes to silence.

Dan gets to his feet.

"I want to thank Chuck for last night," Serena explains, and nods at her coat. "The key to the suite is in the inside pocket. Meet me up there?"

Dan looks, for a split second, like he's about to argue, but then he nods, mouth quirking into a perfunctory smile. He leans down and kisses her full on the lips, a hand fisting in her hair with surprising passion, like he's staking his claim.

The bathroom door cracks open.

Mercifully, Chuck is dressed in fresh pajamas and a robe (not that he didn't amusedly debate coming out in a towel).

Dan nods a farewell as he collects Serena's coat.

"Rain check on the coffee," he says.

"I'm holding you to that," Chuck replies, rubbing his wet hair with a towel.

Serena climbs to her feet, touching Dan's arm warmly as he goes, and smiles at him as he closes the front door to 1812.

Her expression falls flat when he's gone, and she crosses between the love seats toward Chuck.

"He can't know," she says, simply.

He almost smirks. "Please. He probably didn't have any coffee because it wasn't decaf." She rolls her eyes impatiently.

"Promise me."

"You think I'm going to tell Humphrey you did a line of coke backstage at a fashion show? Isn't he a writer? It's too cliché." Now he does smirk, leaning into the familiar comfort of being Chuck Bass. "Besides, I'm starting to come around to this whole Reborn Serena. She's so pure. So wholesome."

She slaps the lapel of his robe.

He chuckles. "I promise, Van Der Woodsen. It was a one-time slip. Not worth mentioning, not that I would anyway."

She nods, and suddenly her face turns serious. "Thank you. I mean- "

She stops him as he moves away.

"Thank you for everything. Last night, and- what we talked about this morning. All of it."

"Don't mention it." He fights the urge to squirm a little, and nods at her feet. "Want some shoes to go upstairs in? Arthur can drop us at school."

She acquiesces and heads upstairs to change, but texts him fifteen minutes later and says to go ahead to school without her; that she'll see him later and return his clothes.

v.

He's starving at lunchtime – he and Serena just had coffee, no breakfast – and so is Nate. But Nate's always starving.

"Where is everyone?" Nate asks, tucking his tie into his sweater to eat. "It's empty enough without…"

 _Blair._

He clears his throat. "Serena and Dan are out today, too. And did you just get here? I haven't seen you at all."

Chuck throws him a knowing smirk. "Went a little too hard at the afterparty last night."

"Oh, yeah?" Nate sticks his fork into his roast chicken lunch. "Which show?"

"Betsey Johnson," Chuck says absently, his attention focused on deftly maneuvering a tiny sliver of ginger between his chopsticks.

Nate passes him a spare napkin. "Any noteworthy incidents?"

Chuck's hand slows; his eyes flick sideways; but he tucks the napkin into his collar with a flourish. "Ran into that girl Havolynne from last fall. Remember her?"

"Tall, long hair, with a Southern drawl? She's tough to forget."

Chuck hisses suggestively with a quick purse of the lips. He's smarmed on enough mornings-after to know how it's done.

"Forget her, I did not."

Nate guffaws. "Well, unless you guys played doubles, that doesn't explain Serena and Dan."

Chuck has a mouthful of spicy tuna roll, and chews it slowly, trying to read Nate's vibe. Is he fishing? There's no way he saw what happened last night- if it had gone anywhere, everyone would know by now.

But Nate doesn't usually ask questions like this.

Then again, Nate doesn't usually get benched in basketball practice for aggression against other players- his own teammates- either.

He takes a sip of his steaming sencha and smirkingly tells Nate that even if he had an interest in keeping track of anyone's affairs other than his own, Serena and Cabbage Patch would not be near the top of his list.

Nate shrugs it off, but Chuck doesn't see the effort it takes for the blond to unclench his fist under the table as he changes the subject.

vi.

So, fine. No one trusts him, apparently.

No one thinks he's trustworthy.

Or smart enough to unwind their deception- is that it?

Dan never appears back at school that afternoon; nor does Serena.

Penelope approaches him, more timidly this time, after the last bell, and asks just above a whisper if he's heard from her at all.

He snaps at her to mind her own business, which this is none of, and storms off, hitching his basketball gear higher on his shoulder – seething inwardly because apparently it's not _his_ business, either.

His brain rattles with Penelope's tired eyes and limp ponytail all the way to the locker room, as he wrestles into his jersey, as he hydrates and warms up.

He needs to see her, now, needs to look at her face and see her easy smile and assure himself that she's all right.

That Penelope is just trying to cause trouble.

Maybe find a juicy enough tip that she can entice Gossip Girl with. God knows the vapid girls who've idolized Blair for the last several years are stumbling around like a handful of blind lambs without their shepherdess to guide them. Anything to bring meaning to their shallow existences is probably worth smearing whoever stands close enough for them to reach.

Serena's close enough.

And it's not like she doesn't have a past.

And it's not like she's not in serious emotional distress.

Which is why he needs to see her, needs her to walk around the corner, even canoodling with Humphrey would be great, just so he can assure himself that she's fine. That there's nothing to worry about.

That Penelope made up the story about her cousin the model who texted Penelope last night saying she'd just done a line of cocaine with Serena Van Der Woodsen during the Betsey Johnson afterparty.

The thought of Serena acting the way he knows she acts when she's on hard drugs, without anyone around to stop her-

But Chuck said he was there, too.

So, what, they're doing coke together now? Or Chuck's keeping an eye on her?

But won't tell him? All of a sudden it's some big secret?

And Humphrey?

Surely he's not covering for Serena dipping her toe back into old habits.

He's so preoccupied with the shuffling of cards in his head, visions of Chuck holding back Serena's hair while she leans over a mirror with a rolled-up bill perched between her fingers spinning mercilessly in his brain, that his coach has to yell _Archibald_ twice before he realizes he's being put in the game.

vii.

Dan stays a few hours, just long enough to provide her with a shot of comfort that someone, under whatever misguided pretenses, thinks she is good and worthy and valuable.

They make love twice.

With anyone else, it would be fucking; with Dan, it's lovemaking and it's so heartfelt and tender that she actually feels guilty doing it.

She never felt guilty before, with him. She felt loved, and loving. Now it feels like she's tricking him, and the sensation coils heavy and nasty in her stomach, even as her heart sings while he brushes her hair back and whispers incoherent love in her ear.

She still settles in his arms after, feeling him brush his fingertips down her spine, twining her legs with his, but every time he's quiet, she's tense with anxiety that he's about to realize just who he's holding.

They laugh and tease and share soft looks- today, they giggle that he's lost his skipping-school virginity to her- but she finds that she has to stop herself from clinging to him, because any moment could be her last, the last moment she manages to keep the blindfold on his eyes before he sees her for what she really is.

It's exhausting.

In the corner of her mind, she knows that it's exhausting. She knows that part of her is dying for the big reveal.

She's not sure how much longer she can keep up the charade of being Dan's Serena.

And so it is that once they've said their final whispered goodbye, shared their final lingering kiss- a deep one, leisurely, voluptuous, that ends with her back pressed against the wall and evidence that he could be ready to go a third time firm against her pelvis- she slumps back in relief.

Her stomach has growled twice in their time together, and she offered to order lunch for them, but Dan didn't want to leave any evidence that he was skipping school ( _classic hooky rookie_ , she chided), so they went without.

Her face relaxes without him there to inspire her to school her expression.

She pulls her hair into a tangled knot since he won't want to run his fingers through it.

She puts Chuck's loaned pajamas back on over her lingerie, and as she does so, her stomach releases a ferocious howl, bubbling and churning like it's trying to process the shame she feels every time she's with him. (And probably because she hasn't eaten today.)

With a stab of perverse satisfaction, remembering the way she apologized to Dan again and again for her inebriated actions last night, she bypasses the phone she'd use to order something to eat and finds, instead, a tumbler and a half-empty bottle of whisky, which she brings with her as she climbs back into bed, kicking her bedroom door shut behind her.

viii.

He's not sure what possesses him, as he hasn't been invited, but after school he directs Arthur to the Waldorfs'.

The doorman waves him through; there have been no paparazzi outside on his last few visits.

Dorota is in the kitchen, preparing a tea tray that must be for her. He steps off the elevator and greets her, noting with a trace of excitement the way she's smiling to herself, something he hasn't seen in weeks.

"She upstairs," Dorota glitters, collecting the tea tray. "I announce you."

As she passes, she tilts her head and he leans down to hear her:

"She wearing… _dress._ "

He looks at her face, waiting for more, but she just hurries up the stairs with barely-concealed glee.

She comes back down much the same, and gestures that he can go up.

When he crosses the threshold, he sees why she's so giddy.

Blair is _indeed_ wearing a dress.

A Carolina Herrera.

She's in front of her full-length mirror- which, he notes, has been dragged from her closet into her main bedroom- hair brushed into loose waves but not curled, face free of makeup, in a stunning bright red Carolina Herrera gown. It's wrapped fabric, what appears to be silk, with a fitted bodice (which should be more snug and could do with some taking in, actually; it's the first time he's able to see visibly that Blair has lost weight), thin straps that sit wide on her shoulders, and a slit that would just show her knee if she walked in it.

He acts before he thinks, and falls back against the door frame in mock injury.

"Waldorf, have mercy," he drawls, unabashedly looking her up and down, on profile as she is.

She turns fully, and he looks at her face, slight pink apostrophes standing out in the bright natural light, reminding him that that's not how he's supposed to talk to her anymore.

But she smiles, just a little, hesitant, and turns back to the mirror. Her dirty blonde waves fall over one shoulder. She's barefoot, and looks impossibly small.

"What do you think?" she asks. "It's from the fall line. I actually got it as an option for the gala."

"It's stunning," he says honestly, eyeing a heap of nondescript navy which he assumes are her discarded lounge clothes.

A real improvement, to be sure.

He hesitates, and then chances it, taking a few steps into the room, still in his overcoat. "Any reason you're trying it on now?"

She shrugs at herself in the mirror. "Just thought I'd see if it fits. If I still fit into it," she adds, at a lower volume.

No risk of that. As someone who fancies himself an expert on her figure, some of her already-slight curves have definitely fallen away in the last month.

"Are you thinking of wearing it… anywhere?" he presses.

She glances at him sideways, and he almost grins when she gives a smirk, albeit a soft one.

"Maybe," she allows, before turning back to her reflection, pivoting sideways, rising on tiptoe, testing the slit.

"Maybe…" he drawls, "to the Herrera show tonight? Bart's not using his ticket. You'd be more than welcome."

She snorts, adjusting the straps a little further apart, then a little closer together, barely noticing as he flicks out the chair to her vanity with his customary gesture and shrugs out of his overcoat. "This isn't appropriate to wear to a show."

"You're Blair Waldorf," he reminds her with the same bravado, dropping his overcoat on her bed and settling into the chair like he's about to watch a fashion show himself.

"It's still a gown," she replies, turning toward him. "I can just see the commentary now: 'Waldorf reappears in public, having clearly lost her mind' – not exactly the society comeback I'd want."

He doesn't want to push, so he resists the urge to ask her specifically what kind of society comeback she _would_ want.

"I'll wear a tux if you want," he offers, resting his chin on his hand, elbow on her vanity.

"As a favor to me, or because you're Chuck Bass?"

Now he snorts, but they fade to silence and he acts without thinking, again: "You look amazing."

She blushes; he sees it on her neck before her cheeks.

She bites her lip, looking at herself, gloriously (in his eyes) half-done, in the mirror.

Sighs a little.

"I'm not ready to go out yet. Not to a show."

"Maybe," he persists, "one of the closing receptions on Friday night?"

"Maybe." She smiles at herself again in the mirror. "Even though we agreed it sucks this year."

"Totally sucks," he agrees.

She turns to walk the three steps to her bed, and the dress furls around her; sinks down, crosses her legs, so he can see one bare leg, foot to knee. It's the leg that has the carving on it, further up, where he can't see; he doesn't know whether the stitches are still there.

"Why'd you come by?" she asks, as though this just occurred to her.

He glances up, chin still on fist.

Why, indeed?

Because he hasn't seen her in a week- is the real answer.

She looks, for the first time, really, since it happened, at ease. Sure, she laughs, teases, pricks at him, and he's sure, with others too. But for the first time, and it's not just the gown- although that helps- he looks at her and sees the Blair Waldorf she used to be. The girl that he knows is still in there.

And he doesn't want to spoil that by saying something like _I just wanted to see how you were doing._

"I need an unbiased opinion on this tie," he says instead, thankful that this is in fact a new tie, and that he dispensed with what little adherence he usually observes to the dress code while getting dressed for his half-day at school today.

She leans forward, then gasps when, he guesses, she bends her ribcage the wrong way, and uncrosses her legs, pushing herself breathlessly to standing.

He gets up, too, and meets her halfway.

They both pretend that didn't happen.

She reaches for his tie and inspects it. "I'm a big fan of sage and maroon together," she says presently, giving a nod.

 _How long has it been since we stood facing each other?_ -he wonders.

Her eyes are warm when she meets his gaze. "Have you gotten taller since turning eighteen?"

"You're just not wearing heels," he teases back.

She laughs, both palms clasping on her ribs even before she does it.

He waits until her frown subsides, and then tilts his head. "You sure you won't come tonight?"

She pauses and shakes her head. "But…" she says haltingly, gaze reverting inward for a moment, and then blinks up at him. "I could."

And she nods, more to herself.

And he understands.

ix.

Lily's in white again: winter white this time, a tweed with gold threads spun through it, with a structured cropped blazer and a slim-fitting sheath that tapers to an impossibly slender silhouette just below the knee – and, daringly, white leather boots – kissing his cheek and murmuring about how all this gorgeous sunshine has her confused about whether they're past Memorial Day or not.

Erik is somewhat more traditional in navy trousers and a hunter green blazer, and an untied navy ascot dangling over the unbuttoned collar of his Oxford.

Chuck is all in navy, an Italian wool suit, with a silk shirt in navy paisley and a straight tie in solid navy wool, causing Lily to wax poetic over how impossibly chic he looks.

"No Serena?" he asks casually, tipping his hand to Xavier on the way out.

"Staying home," Erik says with a quick glance.

"Poor darling hasn't been feeling well at all. Quite frankly, I think she's been pretending to feel better than she really has so she can go to the earlier shows, but she's definitely come down with something," Lily adds as they climb into the limo.

"What a shame she'll miss this," he sympathizes.

"I know," Lily tsks with a sigh.

x.

Somehow, there's very little trepidation over this show. Almost none at all.

He's not sure what it is – the distraction of Serena last night into this morning, the guardedness of keeping Nate at an arm's length, or the lift he got from seeing Blair peacock in front of her mirror and stand in front of him, running her fingers over his tie, telling him _I could_ – but the thought to be anxious about this show, though it does cross his consciousness, is fleeting.

As they're sitting down, he notices Erik tapping one foot absently, but then Erik notices it himself and stops, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee.

"I just love Carolina Herrera," Lily sighs, leaning over to them both.

He remembers red furling around Blair's bare ankles, and smiles.

xi.

The smile fades fairly quickly when the show starts – almost as if, through his own failure to worry about it, he brings the reality of the show on himself.

The first two looks, even three- you could make a case that they aren't derived from any one particular inspiration.

But beside him, Erik runs his hand through his hair in frustration when the third look debuts.

By the fifth look, Lily leans over, slowly, hesitantly, and whispers, more to Chuck than Erik: "Am I crazy to be sensing a pattern here?"

He shakes his head, controlling himself with a long, measured sigh.

Tweed, plaid, collared prep-school chic is apparent in almost every single look.

White tailored Oxfords tucked into pin-darted miniskirts, chic patterned tights adorning perfect sets of high heels, and perfectly fitted blazers strut down the runway in front of them, with impossibly smooth steps like the models are walking on air.

The evening gowns, even, are tweed with chic black silk ties knotted at the hollows of bare throats and tucked into the necklines.

One model wears a white swimsuit with a halter neck that has a full folded collar, from which a loose white tie dangles, and a sarong in accordion pleats.

Several of the models carry books and pose with them at the end of the runway.

One, in a three-piece suit in coordinated plaids, carries a small leather notebook, which she flips open and makes a show of scribbling in while she's being photographed.

And every single model wears a headband.

From swimsuit to evening gown and everything in between, not a single look is missing a headband.

He's perspiring by the seventh look; he knows his jaws are clenched, and Lily's head turning toward him at regular intervals is not lost on him, but just as he spared no bandwidth on the content of the show in the hours leading up to it, now he has none to spare for anything else.

He's lost count- they're probably somewhere around fifteen- when a model comes out in a gorgeous red silk cocktail dress and matching long jacket. It flows when she walks in a way that's too familiar to him; it's only knee-length, with no slit, but he's swallowing a lump in his throat, suddenly painfully aware of the camera to his right, which is gliding along next to the model, who is now shrugging out of the jacket. She holds it up to the side, gently shaking it out, and folds it and drapes it over one arm before the hits the end of the runway.

The flow of red silk around slim bare legs; the way she drapes the jacket; Blair folded and draped one of her school blazers the exact same way in a photo for Night Out With. He remembers, because she practiced it in the mirror one night in her bedroom, absently, while they talked about ways to get a sufficiently diverse set of photos for her profile- _I can't just be in my school uniform for every picture_ , she complained; _God, no_ , he agreed, as though the very idea was sacrilege- and ended with her trying on outfits for his approval, which was useless as he approved of everything she suggested and she ended up giggling on his lap, hangers still dangling from his hand, while he pulled a submitted-for-scrutiny headband from her hair.

The image, the feeling of her weight on his lap, the hum of her lips on his while she laughed into his mouth, the way she smiled at him today, his sage and maroon in her hands, and the secret warmth he swore he felt in the way she said, _I could_ \- shock him like he's just been submerged in ice water.

He watches the camera, barely able to make out the tiny figure of the model, posing ever so carefully in a way that it's impossible she has not studied, on its preview screen, photographers' flashes rewarding her, this designer, this show, for aesthetics and moments that they did not create.

For a magic, an identity, that belongs to someone else.

He's on his feet before he realizes what he's doing. He doesn't excuse himself or apologize to Lily or Erik; he doesn't even acknowledge them. He hears the flow of Lily's voice behind him, maybe saying his name, but it's not in him to stop. His collar is choking him.

He ducks as quickly as he can to the aisle and disappears into the darkness behind the chairs.

xii.

Not so many blocks away, on the twenty-first floor of The Palace, Serena sits curled in her bed, face slack, still in his clothes, bottle of whisky spent and empty on the nightstand beside her.

When the camera pivots to catch the entrance of the next look, she sees him in navy, turning up the aisle, only half of his face caught in the frame as they cross paths.

xiii.

He tries her from the car, hoping against hope, but the line beeps mockingly. Like she's talking to someone already – maybe her mother, or Serena, or… someone else who cares about her.

Or, like she's seen the show and reached over and lifted the receiver and laid it on the bedside table so no one would bother her.

xiv.

The doorman waves him up again, for the second time in just a few hours, and this time there's no Dorota in the kitchen; only auxiliary lights are on, that he can see. He hears running water off the kitchen; laundry, or shower, something.

There's no way Eleanor is home. She must be quadruple-booked at shows tonight.

The penthouse is dark and foreboding in a way it's never been.

He should really wait to be announced, but instead, he's dropping his overcoat in the foyer and taking the stairs two at a time.

xv.

She's almost definitely ruined his shirt ten minutes later, with her face buried as it is in the crook of his neck, crying hot tears so abundant that they pool on his skin and slither down his chest.

He wasn't even at the top of the stairs when he heard her crying. It was guttural, like every sob was being wrenched from her. In his mind's eye, she was at her vanity, red silk draped around her, wiping her face with tissues.

The reality was somewhat uglier.

Quite aware that he might be unwelcome and should not open her door without knocking, at the sound of a high-pitched whimper, he pushed her bedroom door open, saying her name at the same time, and found her balled up in her sheet, knees to chest, red Carolina Herrera in a puddle on the floor beside her bed.

When she looked up and saw his eyes, shame flickered there, but nothing else.

"Blair," he said again, starting to raise a hand, hesitating, stepping closer. The hair resting against her face and neck was wet with tears.

"Lock the door," she replied, twisting her sheet closer around her. It dawned on him as he twisted the deadbolt that she must be wearing little to nothing underneath.

He turned back to find her leaning against her pillows, curled into a ball, almost certainly in pain.

And waited.

Watched her cry.

She carried on like he wasn't there, with no effort to quiet herself, no request for him to give her privacy.

There was a comfort in watching her cry, those first maybe sixty seconds. It felt like a penance he rightfully owed her, if not for some specific action of his then for the fact that he stood there, unharmed, healthy, intact, and much less deserving of that than she.

She looked up at him, then, and all he could think was: _what a difference a few hours can make._ And he saw her again in the lamplight, dark hair wet, and then turning toward him, blood on her face, the difference of just a few hours there too.

For the second time that day, his eyes filled with tears.

"Blair," he tried then, stepping forward, "can I…"

And she raised her hand and beckoned him closer.

And into her bed he climbed, careful to stay on top of the duvet so they stayed separated by several layers of fabric, and wrapped his arms around her.

And after a minute, she tugged on his tie and said, "you know the rule."

No ties in her bed.

"Sorry," he chided, loosening it and flinging it across the room, unbuttoning his top button while he was at it.

And that's when she buried her face against his collarbone, shifting carefully, gripping her sheet, until he caught it and pulled it tighter around her, murmuring _I've got it._

xvi.

She quiets, at last, his hands forcing themselves to stay still on her back because he's afraid to rub her back and hurt her ribs- which he's sure are going to be sore tomorrow, at the very least- and says, more to herself than him, "I want to die."

He stills, heart slowing.

"What?"

She half-shrugs, like she doesn't care to do it fully. "I want to die," she repeats, barely a rasp.

"You will not talk like that," he says, before he thinks, and then adds a halfhearted, "please."

She doesn't move from where he forehead rests on his shoulder. "Maybe if I were dead, people would stop making a mockery of every photo of me that's already been shoved down the public's throat."

He wants to say that it's misguided flattery, that she's a style icon now- and that's something, in spite of everything- but he can't. Because as much as she's humiliated, he's furious.

He glances over at the nightstand for the first time. The receiver is indeed off the base, ivory cord stretching over the side of the table, so it must have been tossed on the floor when she climbed into bed.

He doesn't know what to say to her, so he tugs her layers of sheets higher and tighter for good measure, and rests his head on top of hers.

Time passes softly, slowly- and a short time after the damp warmth at his collar goes to chill, she unfists the hand that's grasping the navy silk and apologizes for ruining his shirt.

He smirks as she pulls back, attempting a ghost of a smile through swollen eyes and mottled skin, and reminds her that that's the second item of clothing of his that she's ruined in the last few months.

She narrows her eyes skeptically.

"The cashmere trousers, if memory serves," he says with raised eyebrows.

Her jaw drops.

"How _dare_ you even bring that up- " she attempts imperiousness and, taking into account her raw voice and visible exhaustion, pulls it off rather well- "when you know it was beyond my control, unlike _the linen shirtdress incident_?"

He sighs in mock exasperation- anything to brighten the light in her eyes.

"We talked about the shirtdress," he reminds her, his tone deliberately patient. "They looked like _snaps_ , not buttons."

She scoffs. "What kind of idiot would put _snaps_ on a linen shirtdress?"

He cocks his head and leans back, a pinprick of recognition dawning in his mind that this, _this,_ is the first time they've ever reminisced about that month, and maybe this is not the right time, and she's been through so much and they've never really-

But then he sees the trademark unimpressed-Blair-Waldorf expression on her tearstained face and pushes all that aside.

"Forgive me," he drawls, "for not stopping to analyze the construction of your dress, when you had my pants around my _ankles_ and your hands in the waistband of my underwear."

She rolls her eyes, looking away in disgust. "Certainly took your time getting your tie off," she mutters.

"I had it off in three seconds," he protests, "I just wanted you to stop yanking on it like a leash."

"I mean, really, who wears a tie on a Saturday night visit to have sex, anyway?"

He raises his free hand to gesture indignantly; the other one flattens against her back, keeping her sheet in place.

"Who wears a _linen shirtdress_ with _snaps_ in December _?_ " he retorts.

"They were _buttons!"_ she half-shouts.

They hold each other's gaze for a few seconds; she cracks first and laughs. His eyes crinkle. She reaches up to take hold of the sheets she's wrapped in, and as he hands them to her, he protests one last time: "They looked like snaps."

"Give it a rest, Bass," she sighs good-naturedly. Then: "I'm sorry about your shirt."

"Call it even," he says, "even though it's not."

"Because of the pants," she reiterates.

"Because of the pants," he confirms.

"You know," she says, "you can buy a million silk shirts, but public humiliation on this scale is priceless." She pauses, gaze falling. "I should know."

He looks down, too. He knows just as well.

He inhales quietly. "Blair…"

"Let's just pretend it didn't happen for now," she says. "I'm not ready."

She glances over at the red on the floor, that she practiced walking in a few hours ago, perched, coquettish, on the edge of this very bed.

 _I could._

He nods. "Okay- "

He's about to say _but_ when Eleanor's voice, muffled, rings up from below.

"Blair, darling, are you awake?"

Their eyes find each other in mutual panic. He slides past her and picks up the red dress, tossing it into her closet as he tells her in a tone that says he knows the drill that he'll go through the bathroom- and passes her her navy lounge clothes.

She pulls her pajamas on once he closes the door to the bathroom, hesitates, and then eases the door open and sticks her head around it. "Thank you," she whispers.

"Mom?" she calls, heading to her bedroom door to unlock it.

Dorota is waiting at the base of the base staircase with the overcoat he dropped in the foyer on his way up.

"I thought you might need later," she whispers, pressing the button for the elevator.

He's in the limo, nearly back to The Palace, when Blair calls him and whispers that he left his tie, "but don't worry, I kicked it under my vanity."

He snorts, then turns serious. "Did your mother pick up on…?"

He's not sure which he wants to ask about: whether she picked up on the fact that Blair had just been crying, or that Chuck left her bed thirty seconds before Eleanor came in, or that Carolina Herrera's collection, like several others, was a complete ripoff- or tribute, depending on how one looks at it.

"The reviews of her collection are in, and she's getting praise across the board," Blair murmurs back. "Believe me, she's not picking up on anything. You could have stayed in the room and I don't think she'd have noticed."


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: You know what I think would be a fun drinking game to play while reading this story? Every time a character lies or deceives, take a sip. Maybe play it with water, though, so you don't wind up drunk =) (Excuse the snark. I played this game while writing this chapter, but with coffee, which is why I'm posting this at the end of an all-nighter! #feelinggreat)**

 **I want to say thank you all so much for your time and attention. I'm behind on responding to PMs and thanking each of you for your reviews, follows and favorites. But just know that I'M SO GRATEFUL! Your messages and reviews seriously make my life. XOXO.**

i.

 _The second glass of wine is nearly finished when she looks outside and comments that it's 'starting to get dangerous out there,' with a long, slow-blinking look at just the right angle for optimal eyelash movement._

 _She glances back and his gaze is locked on her, eyes smoldering._

 _She suppresses a smirk, a victorious flutter vibrating in her chest._

Still got it.

 _He agrees, and asks, eyes never wavering- does she like snow?_

 _A soft smile. "It's romantic."_

 _The corners of his mouth twitch, pause and then curl into a warm smile._

 _He tells her agrees._

 _How far uptown are you?- he asks a moment later._

 _Far, she tells him, with a mournful look._

 _And cab drivers aren't so trustworthy in inclement weather._

 _He takes a sip, murmuring dryly that they're not so trustworthy in any conditions._

 _She giggles, throaty, raising her own glass to her lips._

 _Warm comfort licks through her veins at the way he looks her over, a mix of appraisal and wonder, and she points out that there's no harm in waiting a few more minutes, then._

 _None at all, he agrees, idly tapping his glass on hers- and then they'll sort out a trustworthy way to get her home.  
_ ii.

 _Wednesday, February 6_

Erik and Lily arrive back to their suite together, having barely exchanged two sentences about the show itself, and neither having acknowledged Chuck's departure. Lily's eyes look a bit pink-rimmed; she tells her darling son goodnight, slips her feet out of her white boots, and pads to her bedroom, closing the door with a click that indicates she's retreated for the night.

His knuckles tap ever so softly on Serena's door, not wanting to alert their mother, and Serena says _yes?_ just as softly.

He doesn't have to ask if she saw the show; she doesn't have to feel out whether he fully grasps it.

He pries his shoes off and shuts the door behind him.

"Are you okay?" he asks. The empty tumbler on her bedside table has been rinsed, and the empty bottle hidden or disposed of, but he's no fool.

She smiles, the expression watery like their mother's, and says she will be as long as he stays with her.

"I need you to stay with _me_ ," he smiles back, but it's tight and filled with ill-concealed pleading.

Tugging down the corner of her duvet, she nods at the pillow next to her, and he climbs in, blazer and untied ascot and all.

"I'm in no condition to go anywhere," she says.

He waits, but she doesn't bring it up either; doesn't say she's heard from Blair. Doesn't say whether she's tried to call her. Based on her tense silence and the freeze-frame of Audrey Hepburn reaching up to caress the cheek of Richard Crenna on her flat-screen, he assumes that she has.

"Want to watch with me?" she asks, jerking her head toward the television.

"Sure." He's no stranger to Blair and Serena's Herpburn-a-thons, although knowing how the story is going to end has always been more Blair's thing than Serena's. But he doesn't recognize this one. "What movie is this?" Now he does tug off his ascot and toss his jacket toward the chair behind her bedroom door.

" _Wait Until Dark._ Audrey is blind, and she's all alone in her apartment and being manipulated and used by these three bad guys."

Erik blinks, realizing the caress he thought he was looking at is in fact the nervous gesture of a woman outnumbered and surrounded, trying to understand her adversary.

He fights back the urge to ask how, specifically, they want to use her.

Serena opens her arms, and he slides closer. She squeezes him tightly against her before relaxing. He doesn't comment out loud that her sweater smells like their stepbrother.

As if by magic, Serena unearths the remote from the folds of her duvet and presses Play.

Almost instantaneously, and uncharacteristically, he finds himself discomfited by the unfamiliar gestures and characters on the screen.

"What happens?" he asks quietly.

"She levels the playing field," Serena replies admiringly, smoothing his hair, kissing the top of his head: "Smashes every light bulb in the apartment so they're in the pitch black too."

iii.

 _Thursday, February 7_

The Bass Der Woodsens plan to ride to school together the following morning, and Chuck is late getting into the limo, which, he informed the blondes by text earlier this morning, would be collecting them in the parking garage instead of on the street- " _for obvious reasons"_ \- typing with one hand, the other hovering over the pages of the thick Special Edition of Page Six spread on his bar.

Tumbler of tap water next to him, looking longingly at the single malt next to his espresso machine, wishing he hadn't woken up with a sickened stomach and wild-eyed skittishness.

And that was before he even opened the Fashion Week Report.

iv.

Lily's jaw is wound tightly when she greets her children in the morning, dressed in yoga pants and a long-sleeved top to match, drinking green tea. Taut muscles in her neck relaxing visibly, she smiles at Serena and asks how she's feeling, to which her daughter replies with the same smile- genuine in intention, forced in sentiment, only reaching the eyes with strident effort- and soothes that she's "feeling much better, but I still have a headache."

Indicating her teacup, Lily nods in agreement. "I do, too."

The missing bottles from their liquor cabinet, one whisky and one red wine, probably have nothing to do with that.

Lily pours Serena a green tea; Erik declines a cup, kissing her on both cheeks in consolation. She listens to her children chattering as they put on their shoes and coats, and almost doesn't have the heart to hand over the feature that she's already read twice.

"There may be photographers outside," she says softly as their heads tilt together over the pages. "You may want to see if you can meet Charles- "

"In the garage," Erik finishes for her.

v.

"Morning," Erik says when Chuck joins them.

"And to you," he replies. "Sis."

"Stepbro."

Serena is back to her best Incognito Serena disguise, which is a brimmed beanie, a scarf and sunglasses, the latter of which she has folded over her collar at the moment. By her posture, she appears to be poring over the photos – live-action runway shots next to Night Out With regurgitations – but, as they emerge from the underground into the cindery stillness of a February morning, her gaze is lost.

Erik, morose beside her, had his fill of the photos on the first go-round. Chuck's copy is in his hand, though he's sure he's memorized every image by now. It's a quick read when one has put the pieces together oneself; any of the three in the limo could have written the accompanying text, with its presentations of the obvious parallels, its yellow and green and red arrows pointing out palette and design approximations, its featurettes on Who Did It Best and In The Words of Miss Waldorf, whereby the shamelessly decontextualized quotes from Blair's past interviews appear in white-on-black boxes in the margins with oversized quotation marks, appearing, misleadingly, to legitimize the plagiarism of her style, her wit, her very identity.

They ride most of the way to school in silence; Erik pipes up a few blocks away, shaking his head before he even speaks: "I'm sure this is a stupid question, but – there's nothing we can do, this time. Is there?"

"Not a stupid question," Chuck murmurs.

"Nothing," Serena confirms tightly.

Erik nods once, looking away, and the limo is quiet again until they arrive.

Chuck lingers, tucking his Page Six away into a compartment, and Erik slides out first, hollowly bidding both a good day. Serena shoves her copy into her school bag and checks the sidewalk for paparazzi.

She's straightening her hat and he falls into step beside her.

"These shoes don't really go with this outfit," Chuck says, gesturing at his feet. "I wanted to wear my alligator loafers, but they've mysteriously vanished."

Serena smirks; they're still in her bedroom, along with the pajamas she borrowed from him after Betsey Johnson (and just took off an hour ago).

"I'm sure they'll turn up," she coos, but doesn't make eye contact.

"And the handful of oxies that went missing right around the same time," he continues thoughtfully, keeping his eyes forward, "I wonder if those will reappear."

She stiffens- imperceptible under her coat- but doesn't miss a beat. "With the revolving door of degenerates coming through 1812, that's difficult to say."

He purses his lips, glancing over at her. "'Degenerates'? Harsh."

She shrugs, plucking her mirrored sunglasses from her collar and sliding them on with both hands before returning the look, eyes unreadable. She leans in, whispers, "know thyself" with a twist of the mouth, and walks away.

vi.

She's not fallen so far that she can't appreciate the irony. A whole spread about her influence on internationally-renowned New York Fashion Week. Page Six, even- it's not Vogue, but nor is it some stupid fashion blog.

No, it's real, and with wide and legitimate readership.

A month ago, she would have gone weak at the knees for these pictures, the tip of an arrow indicating her headband, her lip color, the dark frame of her brows, the way she tucked a black silk tie into a sheath dress; the opposite tip of the same tail pointing at a look conceived by a household-name designer.

She tries, now. Tries to feel the fluttering, to conjure up the excitement, to think of some way she can salvage this. No press is bad press, and these designers mean to flatter her.

The Blair Waldorf she knows, the satin-haired brunette smiling back at her, arrows pointing out her finest details, would find a way to harness this and rise above everything. That Blair Waldorf was the Comeback Queen. Blair the Infallible. Blair the Unflinching. Starching her spine was what she did best, and there was perverse pleasure in making the less resilient cringe and pull back in the face of her unwavering resolve to have the existence she envisioned.

Nate wasn't fascinated by her? He would be.

Serena was the one everyone preferred? She'd prove she was just as worthy.

Her mother thought she'd never be the daughter she wanted? Unthinkable measures would be taken to exceed her expectations.

 _That_ Blair would hire a chauffeured town car back to Constance for tomorrow morning, dress in her most effortlessly fabulous outfit yet (something new, obviously) and probably even tip off the papers about what time she'd arrive- anonymously, of course, and give an ETA ten minutes earlier than realistic, for dramatic effect.

The driver would come around to open her door with its opaque-tinted window, and out she'd come, one foot and then the other on the sidewalk, leaning on his hand for support and stepping onto the curb in one fluid movement, slinging her bag over her shoulder, impervious to the blizzard of flash bulbs, the sea of microphones.

Straightening her spine, she'd walk through the crowd, no comments or backward glances.

The Comeback of Blair Waldorf could be- _would_ be- the stuff of legend. She knows that. It's not like she hasn't fantasized about it; not like she hasn't mentally evaluated outfit choices.

But that Blair, the one in the town car, the one in the photos, feels more like an old friend, a treasured and admired old friend that this girl- the washed-out blonde who watches quietly through the town car's window while Blair the Infallible glides through the crowd- misses dearly. For that girl, no challenge was too big, no expectation too high. She throve on that sort of pressure.

For this girl, the thought of slipping a stocking into a garter hook, tugging it up over the pink lines of the word WHORE that are still visible on her leg, is where things come grinding to a halt.

Yesterday felt so easy, so natural: a long bath in the midafternoon, the steam twisting her hair into loose spirals; then, the unexpected urge to try on silk, the whisper of the skirt sliding up her freshly shaven legs. The divinely-timed surprise of Chuck's back hitting the doorframe, that glitter in his eye when he looked at her and she didn't feel afraid, didn't even think to feel afraid, and even more than that, she agreed with him that she did look beautiful.

But that was all she was allowed before reality came splitting back over her head: the world is not the safety of her bedroom, the controlled environment of Chuck who has seen her bleeding and shaking and crying and still finds it in him to look at her, at _this_ girl, like that.

The rest of the world expects her to be something else. And she can't go with the girl that gets out of the town car, dark waves bouncing with every step. So she leans close to the tinted glass, almost letting her nose touch, and watches Blair the Unflinching walk away.

vii.

"You okay, man?"

Nate gestures at Chuck's plate: steamed brown rice, avocado, hot water with lemon. Chuck has barely had three bites.

"Woke up with an upset stomach," he replies, halfheartedly spearing a slice of avocado and a few grains.

Nate pauses and looks him over; Chuck glances up, then away, as a flash of a different Nate slices through his mind's eye.

"You sick?"

"No. Just didn't sleep well. Espresso martini with an old friend" (emphasis on _old_ _friend_ to redirect Nate's focus) "before bed."

Nate smiles, just one corner of his mouth, and Chuck picks up his lemon wedge and squeezes it furiously into his hot water, willing away the image of Nate bleeding from the mouth, bracing himself on pavement, trying with shaky arms to push himself upright.

"I saw Serena this morning. She must be doing better," Nate says, reaching for his second seared ahi wrap. "Have you talked to her?"

"We all rode to school together this morning."

The blond takes a bite. "Did she seem sick or anything?"

 _Just_ _hungover_. "She didn't come to Carolina Herrera with us last night, but she seems fine now. Maybe a headache."

 _And possibly coming down from oxies._

He sips his hot water, too sour now, but he doesn't care.

Nate nods, and the up-and-down motion twists into another Nate, crouching, trying to steady himself, breath uneven as he clasps the hand that's being offered to him. He grips it hard, so hard that Chuck can feel his knuckles being pressed inward, and he shakes his hand out under the table.

Suddenly the real Nate is staring at him. "You sure you're okay? You're sweating."

"Too many layers," he shrugs, even though it's raw out and the tip of his nose is freezing. He changes the subject to the first thing he thinks of. "You still going to the gala?"

"Probably. I don't see a way out of it. My mom wants me to ask Blair." Nate pauses, something occurring to him, and as usual he doesn't hide it well. "Have you talked to her at all?"

"Some," Chuck says around the rim of his hot water. "I'm not sure she wants to go, especially now."

Nate has seen Page Six, and though he gets the concept that people are copying Blair, the magnitude of it is lost on him. Fashion and detail are not his strongest suits. But after what his family's been through the last few months, the concept of not wanting to be stared at and whispered about is something he understands completely.

He glances sideways at Chuck. "Are Blair and Serena talking?"

Chuck shrugs again. "Probably. I'm not sure."

"But Serena's going to the gala, right? Probably with Humphrey?" Nate persists. "Things are good with them?"

"As good as things can be when you're from Brooklyn," Chuck drawls, pushing down his irritation at Nate's questioning and looking for another redirect. "I'll make us an appointment for a fitting on Saturday afternoon. If you do wind up taking Blair, you can't show up in last year's tux."

It works. "She's not even talking to me," Nate mumbles, defeated, and drops it.

As they clean up their lunch settings, he says something about how things used to be so much easier- so much simpler- before- _you know?_ \- and looks at Chuck, who can't help but hear his friend's longing for a time when he had a doting girlfriend who forgave him anything and dutifully kept her mouth shut while he panted over her best friend.

But when he looks back at Nate, who's in the process of standing, he sees him again, in a flash, doubled over, struggling to breathe, and he does his best to nod comfortingly while uncomfortable goosebumps bloom on his back.

viii.

Once she opens the door and descends five stairs, which is the maximum she's meant to be doing at this stage, and calls for Dorota, it's all arranged relatively quickly. They're there within two hours.

She sits cross-legged on her bed, posture neat and careful, and directs. Boxes come in. She makes decisions.

Dorota brings her a tea tray, and she cups the china in both palms, no saucer, letting it burn her hands.

Her large full-length mirror, tilting on its heavy base, is dragged back into her closet, a sheet thrown over it.

Dorota nearly steps on the red Carolina Herrera, which lies defeated where Chuck flung it last night as he made his hasty departure, and holds it up silently to Blair.

She nods, averting her eyes, and picks up the swatch book someone laid on her duvet.

ix.

This season's Cynthia Rowley show is at matinee hour, three o'clock, and Serena catches a cab home early to go with Lily. When Serena arrives, Lily is dressed in a sage green lapel-less pantsuit, and Serena pauses when she sees her, then wordlessly wraps her arms around her mother.

Lily holds her while Serena chokes out a few sobs, shushing her apologies for getting tears on the blazer, and offers for them to skip the show altogether.

"No, it's okay," Serena says. "Just let me change."

Lily says nothing about Serena missing the end of her school day, and compliments her daughter's sky blue jersey sheath and messy bun.

They arrive early enough to nibble a cucumber sandwich hors d'oeuvre in the outer part of the tent, and by the time the lights go down, Lily is relieved to see Serena's features have relaxed into a soft smile. She pats her daughter's knee, and Serena leans against her briefly, more of a sway, and kisses her cheek and whispers _I love you_.

"I love you, too, my darling," Lily whispers back, but it's drowned out as the runway music strikes up.

The collection, as it's described later, is slightly more monothematic than in seasons past, though not much of a departure. It's apparently not worth real estate in any mainstream reporting outlet, although one could argue that that's because the ship sailed with this morning's issue of Page Six.

It's a lot of knitwear, this season's Cynthia Rowley collection. Soft sweater suits with open jackets in an array of neutrals; floaty chiffon skirts in muted floral palettes paired with crepe blouses with ruffled necklines; a French-cut one-piece with rosettes lining the deep halter neckline; draped evening gowns in seafoam, blush, dove grey and lilac, with a flounce or a ruffle or a bare back or a neck cut wide enough to slip off one shoulder.

Serena, hands folded comfortably in her lap, watches pedestrianly as the looks parade one after another past her, losing track after the first two.

Instead, she remembers lounging next to Blair in her bed, sipping fresh-squeezed orange juice and trying to conceal her giggles as Blair complained for the fourth time that she had told that moronic reporter over and _over_ that her room was not _cornflower_ blue, it was _French blue -_

 _But you look beautiful, B. Look at that gorgeous smile!_

A scoff- _That's not the point!_ A dramatic sigh, like Serena would just never understand.

Serena sighs now, happy, the twinge of that second look, a fine-knit creamy sweaterdress with a cowl neckline and tiny cap sleeves, only minutely bothering her.

Blair _did_ look beautiful in that photo, she remembers: in her _French blue_ room, perched cross-legged and comfortable, in virginal ivory cashmere that draped perfectly just below her collarbones.

x.

When he answers, Blair's first question is whether he's okay.

"Sure," he says, clearing his throat on the syllable. "Why?"

"You sound tired."

He smirks. "Cried myself to sleep last night. My favorite shirt got ruined."

She tuts sympathetically. "I'm surprised you were able to sleep at all."

"Oh, I was up half the night," he assures her. She waits, and he says, "just a little sore throat."

"Do you need to go?"

"I have more stamina than that, Waldorf," he chides. It's barely nine. "And… how are you?"

Now it's her turn to pause. "Well," she says primly, "I suppose I can't have reasonably expected that no one else was going to notice, given the timing."

"…And how are you?" he repeats, when it's clear that's all she's going to say.

She looks around her room, a long sigh passing her lips, and says, "I've been better." Then a little _ahem_. "Did you go to any shows tonight?"

"No," he says firmly. "I'm done."

"Reception tomorrow night?"

"You couldn't pay me."

"Fashion Week totally sucked," she says quietly.

He exhales, mirthless. "When I'm right, I'm right."

"Since we're both boycotting…" Her voice drops low, like it does when she's about to scheme. "Want to come over for dinner?"

As he confirms, she looks around at her new walls, her new room, completely transformed from twelve hours ago.

Marie Antoinette was the hardest to see go, but when she did, Blair felt relief.

xi.

After he and Blair hang up, despite his undeniable fatigue, he finds himself inventing reasons to avoid going to bed. He picks out his clothes for tomorrow and groups the hangers close together. Flips his pillows on his bed. Hangs up his coat, plucking it from the chairback where he draped it when he came home. Drops the copy of Page Six on top of the swamp of surveillance photos and newspaper clippings in the banker's box tucked in one corner of his closet. Picks up his single malt and slides it carefully into a cabinet, with one last look before he closes the door.

He has a sudden urge to see Lily, and wishes it weren't Fashion Week and there might be a chance she's downstairs at Divine, the bar quiet, a small smile on her lips and some free-flowing conversation about decorating or wedding planning or what color to wear to the gala at the ready.

And then her offer to stay in the Van Der Woodsen suite, as impossible and unrealistic as it is, trickles through his ears.

And the kiss on his brow.

And he picks up the phone beside his bed.

And his vision swims, just for a moment, as he reaches out and dials the front desk.

"Chuck," Kathryn says, smile in her voice. "What's up? How are you tonight?"

He swallows. "I'm a little under the weather, actually," he replies.

"Oh, no. What's wrong?"

He can practically feel her eyes shifting off of her computer screen to focus on him.

"I, uh, think I might have… a fever." He sniffs for effect.

"Do you think you're coming down with something? Maybe I should get Dr. Holt…"

"I don't think so." He leans back on his pillows and narrows his eyes at the ceiling. "Just- what sorts of things does one do to bring down a temperature?"

She begins to rattle off measures he can take, phrasing every one as a recommendation: _you should_ take some ibuprofen, and _make sure you_ drink enough water and _don't let yourself_ overheat. She insists he call her in the morning and let her know how he's feeling.

No more than a minute after he's thanked her and hung up, room service appears with a tray: orange juice, chicken soup, ibuprofen and chamomile tea, plus an electronic thermometer in its plastic sheath.

He smiles sadly at it.

He consumes it all, even the ibuprofen, figuring it can't hurt, and sends her an email that says: _Thank you. You're the best._

xii.

In a darkly funny twist, his dreams tonight are more fevered than last night's. Nate, spitting blood and something thicker, trying to steady himself on the pavement, his breath coming in quick spurts, doesn't immediately take the hand he offers.

He glances up through a fringe of hair tinged dark from sweat, blue eyes wide with fear, and he doesn't look comforted.

He doesn't look like he's safe now.

He looks around their world- a world that's gray and indistinct, dense with the promise of peril- and in two short gasps, long enough for him, Chuck, to crouch down in front of him, he seems to decide that this is the better option.

He slips his hand into Chuck's and allows himself to be hauled to standing, stumbling a little, leaning in as he coughs from the exertion, and follows Chuck's lead. And he doesn't second-guess it after that point, but no matter how many times Chuck crouches down and offers him his hand, or touches his shoulder, or says his name while strings of blood drip from Nate's mouth, that momentary hesitation, that lack of relief, doesn't disappear.

xiii.

 _Saturday, February 9_

Nate makes a halfhearted reference to his classic set of tails as they browse through the new samples, but Chuck tells him quietly that he's already let the tailor know that his father will be covering both tuxedos, so to please book them to the same Bass account.

Blue eyes widen in alarm. "Dude," Nate hisses, embarrassed, looking around as if expecting an audience of pitying faces.

"Please," Chuck says, averting his eyes on the pretense of fingering a rack of bow ties in different shades of red. "It's nothing. Happy to."

Nate's shoulders slump, a gesture Chuck feels in his own posture, familiar from the numerous Mother's Day luncheons and Easter egg hunts that Anne has insisted he stay on at the Archibald townhouse for.

He moves past Chuck, nudging him gently with his shoulder, and says quietly, "Thank you."

Chuck smiles to himself. "What color vest are you thinking?"

"Is red too cliché?"

"That depends." Chuck rolls his eyes. "Will you also be bringing a heart-shaped box of chocolates?"

The blond smirks, then turns serious. Fingers resting on a stack of red damask vests, he sighs: "I finally heard from Serena last night."

"Oh?" He forces his jaws to unclench. "Late?"

What he means is, _after she called Blair and woke us- her- up?_

"Uh…" Nate squints at the ceiling. "Late-ish."

Chuck waits. Serena's voice, pitching up so he could hear it from where Blair swayed, half-conscious, next to him, echoes in his mind.

"What did she want? Everything good?"

 _Serena_ , Blair said after a minute, her voice creaky with sleep and hoarse from the crying she obviously did just before he arrived, based on her puffy eyes and raw nose that he ignored when she deflected his question about how her therapy sessions were going, _I can't talk right now._

And sinking with a stifled sigh into her back, phone cradled carefully in her no-longer-wrapped hand, cord stretching across her chest, as he raised himself on one elbow, delirious at being shaken from the first deep sleep he's had in three days.

Her eyes rolled to meet his apologetically in the dark.

"I don't know," Nate says, and he genuinely doesn't seem to.

He maneuvered closer to Blair, listening to Serena's voice but unable to make out the words, suppressing the urge to tell her to stop drinking and go to bed.

"Was she upset?"

Blair sighed in frustration. _It's the middle of the night- I'm sleeping-_

Serena's tone sharpened, volume swelling to a shout: _Is Chuck there?_

"She just seemed sad. She was saying how much she missed old times, the four of us, before we… Serena and I. You know." Nate scratches behind one ear in classic Bashful Archibald fashion.

Two pairs of brown eyes found each other in the dark. Chuck inhaled sharply, angrily, through his nose, then let it out slow.

Serena didn't take the pause well. _Is he? Because he's not here, and he's not home._

 _He's not here,_ Blair said without another hesitation. _There's a million other places he could be._

 _He's not?_ A little louder: _Chuck?_

(Chuck put his face in his pillow and muttered "for fuck's sake" then.)

"I'd say that ship has sailed," Chuck says with affected nonchalance.

Nate flinches. "She said things are so screwed up now and it's all her fault for starting it…" He waits for the jab from Chuck, and says it himself when it doesn't come: "Which we both know isn't true."

"Not entirely, no," Chuck smirks, fingering a black satin lapel.

"And I was like, 'I mean, look, things obviously aren't great right now, but that's not your fault, and look on the bright side- you have Dan, he loves you.'"

Chuck heaves a bored sigh. "And what did she say to that?"

 _Serena,_ Blair said sharply, _stop yelling in my ear. I'm going back to sleep. Don't call me again tonight, okay? Go to bed._

Serena quieted back to a murmur, so he had to lean over as Blair put the receiver between them.

 _I'm sorry, Blair, I just miss you and I want to see you and I'm just… I'm going crazy without you. Can we just talk, or… something?_ The last word was almost inaudible.

Covertly, he watched Blair out of the corner of his eye, and saw her twist the phone cord a little between her fingers, then release it.

 _We will,_ she said evenly, _but now isn't the right time. Get some rest. We'll talk soon, okay?_

The unmistakable sound of Serena letting out a sob escaped from the earpiece before, to her credit, she covered it. _Okay. I love you._

Blair rolled onto her side and put the receiver back into its cradle. When she sighed, lowering herself to her back again, she yawned an apology that was cut short by the phone trilling.

She didn't have to answer it to know. It was Serena, heartbroken that Blair didn't say she loved her too.

With a groan of frustration that she didn't bother to swallow, Blair pushed herself out of bed and leant over the cradle, finding the cord that connected it and ripping the jack out. She got back into bed panting, her heavy exhalations the only sound in the room.

Not having shifted from his spot next to her pillow, now he slowly moved away, a chilly fist squeezing at his heart at what he'd just seen.

Blair said nothing else, just shut her eyes and laid back, and he did the same, ticking over the way she twisted the phone cord and disconnected the cable, thinking that she knows Serena would have calmed down and gone to bed if she'd just said _I love you too._

After a few minutes of complete silence, he noiselessly turned his head and looked at her profile for a long moment.

Nate's eyebrows flick up quickly, arms crossing over his chest. "She said something about how Dan loves a girl who doesn't exist. I mean, I guess she was talking about herself."

"Unless Humphrey's a phasmomaniac."

"A phasmo-what?"

"Someone who's obsessed with ghosts." He pulls out the satin lapel and its ivory counterpart, and hands them off to a birdlike young sales associate to find in his size. "Was that it?"

"She kinda yelled at me," Nate sighs, sorting listlessly through a rack of black jackets pre-paired with vest and tie combinations. "She was like, 'Nate, don't you get it? No one loves me, because I don't deserve it.'"

He raises an eyebrow from where he stands inspecting a slate blue jacket. "And did you take the opportunity?"

Nate pauses, then lets out a burst of laughter, his face relaxing as he rolls his eyes. "Shut up."

Chuck shrugs, going back to the jacket.

"No. I told her we all love her no matter what. I didn't know what else to do."

He blinks and waits, looking at the jacket's lining like he couldn't care less what Serena had to say to that.

"So she just said thank you and hung up."

"Just a little extra emotion on the classic Drunk Serena," he says with a tip of the head.

"Yeah," Nate nods slowly, "I mean, with everything that's happened."

He begins unbuttoning a double-breasted purple jacket. "You think she was home at that point? I didn't see her last night," he volunteers, hoping this will nip any questioning Nate might want to do in the bud.

"Uh… it was quiet on her end, so probably. Hopefully she just went to bed."

 _Probably popped an oxy and then went to bed._

"Just another Friday night on the Upper East Side."

Nate chuckles, worry lifting. "What'd you do? Afterparty? Any new talent on the field?"

He's checking the inside pockets of the purple jacket, which have tiny zippers, and his fingers brush the velvet lapel as he withdraws them. He smiles down at it, and swallows while Nate's safely looking the other way, remembering Blair standing in front of him, their fingers brushing together at the front closure of her purple velvet robe.

The room was dark, but she had that same look in her eyes as when she ran her fingers over his tie in her red silk, not glittering up at him- she hasn't glittered since it happened- but warm, the faintest smile on her lips, her gaze steady and sure.

 _I almost forgot,_ she whispered.

Her eyes crinkled a little; the backs of his knuckles hovered, just grazing her sash.

 _You're Chuck Bass._

"Skipped the afterparty," he says to Nate over his shoulder, catching his eye, voice low enough to indicate he doesn't wish to smarm audibly in a classy tailor's shop: "Saw another old friend."


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: Thank you all so much for your feedback on the last chapter, and I do apologize for any confusion caused by the way it was written. There's a lot of hidden/obscured content in this story, obviously, but the way I organized (and especially formatted) the intercut scenes in the last chapter was not my best execution. I promise to be more mindful going forward. But, onward! It's quite a long chapter today, and I hope it's not too much – there's a LOT happening and we're entering a very dense phase of our story**

 **Your reviews, follows and favorites make my day. XOXO!**

i.

 _Friday, February 8_

 _Late afternoon_

Dr. Genove, accustomed by this point to her patient's polished conversational subversion, wastes no time.

"I notice your room looks very different today than it did the last time I was here."

Blair nods; the doctor sees that she'll have to ask a direct question if she wants commentary. She adjusts the notebook, not yet opened during this session, that balances on her knee.

"Why did you decide to change it?"

Blair opens her mouth, then closes it, front teeth testing her lower lip as she looks around slowly. She studies the graceful sweep of her curtains, unchanged (though the baroque tie-backs have been replaced by wide, plain ivory ribbons); late-afternoon sun, quickly dying, rushing through to splash her bare, polished floor with one last burst of gold; the blank, unremarkable ivory of her walls, not optic white but equally impersonal; the chic rug rolled up and taken out of the way of the painters and, at a quiet word from Blair, never brought back. Her dark headboard, now a minimalistic contrast to the pale empty walls, no longer rests against an ethereal silvery glow; her closet door, closed since last night, conceals a cavernous shell emptied of its contents, which have likewise been removed, presented for Blair's inspection article by article and withdrawn at her increasingly quick approvals, marched out like a parade of misbehaving ghosts.

Blair swallows.

"I… it felt like it was time for a change," she says, the words oblong in her mouth. It's the first time she's had to explain it to anyone- the first time anyone has asked. Last night, her mother's gaze skittered around- mouth tight, nod tighter- when she saw the transformation, and said, "very chic, darling, but then you always did have such refined taste," the words hesitant and the tone overly solicitous. And Blair let her off easy with a smile and a word of thanks, because she no more wanted to discuss with her mother why continuing to live in the room of Blair the Unflinching, whose existence was a constant struggle and whose identity she'll never be able to fully reclaim, does not work- than Eleanor wished to hear it.

It's clear that Dr. Genove is waiting for more. The woman has an irritating gift for asking a question and then fixing her with a gaze that holds her constantly- but without fully staring- until she has to elaborate or she'll begin physically squirming. There's something about it that makes her feel like a child on the verge of a reprimand, but this sensation is an odd comfort to her. An irritating comfort- like wearing unattractive shoes with proper arch support on a long walk- but a comfort nonetheless.

"I guess I was thinking…"

 _When she threw open her bedroom door and palmed the bannister- the effort of taking the five steps down measured and, pleasingly, painless-_

"After everything that's happened, I just…"

 _Page Six open on her tousled bed behind her, uncapped pen virile and sinister in its exposed inner spine-_

"It seems like it's time to start over."

The doctor nods, slow, expansive, the angle of her head changing as she holds Blair in her gaze; nothing like Eleanor. Absolutely nothing.

"And," Dr. Genove murmurs, thoughtful, "is there any specific development or thought that brought on this yearning for a new start?"

Ordinarily, this would bring a challenging cock of the head from her patient, who makes no secret of her disdain for being condescended to. Dr. Genove is no society slouch. She's seen Page Six. (The whole city has.)

Ordinarily, this would precipitate a tart faux-muse, a brittle "hmm"- at the very least, a quick narrowed eye.

Today, it doesn't.

Today, Miss Waldorf licks her lips and says, confusedly and a bit ashamedly and quite without preamble: "It's not like me to go off with someone I just met."

The doctor's hand twitches on the cover of her notebook, but opening it now is not the right move. This is the first time Miss Waldorf has steered one of their conversations this way with no prodding; the trauma of this week's renewed media interest, and the ensuing inner upheaval she appears to have experienced in the last day or so might, it seems, have cracked the glass house she retreats to when their exploration delves too deep.

With effort, the doctor keeps her fingers in place on the notebook's cover.

"Is it _un_ like you, specifically?"

Blair blinks. Her gaze is fixed in midair, somewhere between them. "Yes. Yes, it's unlike me."

Her full, pale lips quiver a moment before she rolls them inward and sets her jaw. Her temples flex and relax with the effort of controlling herself.

"It's unlike me," she repeats, harder, "to go off with someone I don't know, like that- for any reason- regardless. Yes. Yes, it's not like the person I was before, which was who I w- " she breaks off suddenly and swallows again. "Which was who I wanted to be," she finishes with effort.

"Do you feel," the doctor asks gently, "that you're a different person now? Do you feel you're severed from the person from before?"

"I d… I think so." Blair shakes her head, the movement so tiny it's almost invisible. "I think I have to be."

"Have to be?"

"I think I have to be a different person, now."

The doctor shifts in her seat. "Why do you have to be?"

Blair looks up, expression puzzled. "Because things are different now," she says, with a tone of obviousness.

"They are." Dr. Genove flicks her notebook sideways onto the barren top of Blair's vanity without looking. She crosses her legs and leans to one side, the movement slow, thoughtful, to rest her elbow on the arm of her chair, cupping her chin in her palm. "But why does that mean you have to be a different person?"

The question halts Blair.

"What I mean is," Dr. Genove clarifies, "of course parts of you are changed. But why does that mean you can't be the person from before? Why do you feel you have to start over?"

Blair is quiet for a long time as she thinks this over; the doctor waits; she can see that she's trying.

"Because," Blair says at last, "that- " she's blinking rapidly; she shakes her head once, opens her mouth, closes it, then shakes her head again.

The doctor waits.

"That wasn't how things should have gone," she finally says, a subtle pitch of anger, of incredulity, creeping into her voice. "I don't just mean…"

Clenches her jaw again and takes a long, slow breath through her nose.

Starts again.

"That was… what I- the- person from b- before did, it… it was very unlike me," she finishes somewhat lamely, like she's disappointed with her own answer.

Dr. Genove notes mentally- the notebook is now officially on hiatus- the physical agitation that continues in the ensuing pause: erratic blinking, gaze skeltering side to side. Temples rippling more than once.

"Was it very unlike the 'you' of now, or the 'you' from before?" the doctor asks, very gently.

Blair looks, again, like this question has not occurred to her. "Before," she says after a moment.

Dr. Genove nods.

"And because it was unlike you to be taken in like that," she asks slowly, "and because of what happened as a result, is that why you feel the right thing is to start over? Am I understanding what you're saying? Or what am I missing?"

Blair's eyes close briefly. When they open, they're bright with tears and she looks at the doctor.

"I don't understand her," she whispers, though the door is closed and they have complete privacy. "I look back and I don't… understand her."

"Mmm." Dr. Genove licks her lips thoughtfully and rolls her gaze heavenward on the pretext of thinking of her next thought, to keep their exchange moving at a pace that won't overwhelm. "May I ask, though… would you say you understood her before?"

"Of course," Blair says at once.

"Would you say everything she did made sense, and was in alignment with the understanding you had of her?" the doctor presses. "No contradictions? No self-maneuvering that had to be done? No internal conflict or behaviors that didn't make sense?"

Blair bristles visibly as these questions go on.

"No one is perfect," she defends, her voice low. "I mean, yes, of course, there were contradictions. Of course there were things that didn't make sense, that were… _unplanned_ , mistakes that had to be dealt with, that's- that's _normal_." A hint of desperation creeps into this self-justification.

Dr. Genove opens her mouth, but Blair's defenses prickle and she falls back on the signature sarcasming that her therapist is, frankly, surprised they've made it this far without.

"Of course, I'm sure you're about to say you don't like the word _normal_ ," Blair rushes on before the doctor can say anything. "But yes, before, I mean, just like anyone else, there were- unexpected- developments," – she says _expected developments_ with a clipped, exaggerated inflection; overly formal – "you know- _unscripted moments-_ sure, but, really, who cares? I mean, who _doesn't_ experience that?"

She ends this speech with a little huff and looks insolently at Dr. Genove, who manages, with difficulty that Blair cannot possibly guess, to keep the smile from her lips at this behavioral volte-face.

"I was just going to say," the doctor says, "that if you experienced making mistakes and dealing with unexpected developments before, then why do you feel the need to start over entirely, because of this one specific- what you perceive to be- mistake- that night?" She pauses. "Because of one momentary mistake that you feel, and I agree, was out of character, why are you inclined to throw the whole Blair Waldorf book in the fire?" She gestures around the room expansively. "Whitewash everything?"

It takes a very long time for the enormity of what Dr. Genove is asking her to fully sink into Blair.

"You said yourself a moment ago," Dr. Genove ventures after a minute or two of quiet, "that no one is perfect. I understand that the trauma of what you've been through, both that night and since, is on a level beyond what most people experience in their lives." She hesitates, and then: "And the sustained uninvited attention you continue to attract is, if I may, both tasteless and damaging, and the responsibility for that lays firmly at the feet of those who perpetuate it."

Blair blinks her tear-filled eyes, surprised at the closest thing she's heard to emotion from her therapist in all the hours they've spent together.

Dr. Genove neutralizes the frustration she hears in her own voice and continues.

"My point is, Blair."

They hold each other's eyes.

"The temptation to try to dissociate yourself from what you've been through, and from the identity of the girl who's survived this trauma, is completely understandable. But choosing to be someone else, to see the person who sustained the trauma as a separate person, is simply a fancier way of deciding that you're blocking out what you've been through, dissociating yourself from your pain, rather than dealing with it directly and allowing yourself to heal."

Blair's chin is shaking now, not quivering but severe, unattractive up-and-down shaking. Her teeth rattle and she clamps her jaws together on the instant; unable to contain her fidgeting, she begins to nod then, only half-conscious of her own movements.

The doctor watches her carefully. "Do you understand what I mean?"

Blair nods in a more organized fashion, but her tears spill over and she chokes back a sob.

"It's…"

Then she stops, shaking her head uselessly, and wipes her cheeks with both hands.

"It's not just- it's not just that I can't understand her," she confesses, her voice hoarse with misery, still shaking her head, "I can't… I can't reach her anymore."

She half-scoffs at what she obviously feels is a ridiculous thing to say, punctuating her eyeroll with a sniffle.

"I can't… find her," she tries again, listless.

Her therapist nods slowly, and then clears her throat. "Do you want to find her?"

Blair appears to think this over, rubbing at her nose with one long sleeve.

(Using the fabric to shield her crumpling expression from her therapist as she fights down flashes of moments, words, that the doctor doesn't know, and that she herself still does not understand.)

Nose dried, frowning at the dark splotch on her sleeve, Blair shrugs slowly. "I don't know. Honestly." She takes a deep breath. "What if I never find her? Or I find her, but still don't understand? What if I… can't?"

What she's asking is, _wouldn't it be easier to just restart the movie from here?_

Dr. Genove smiles, kindly. "I'm not sure any of us can ever fully reach or understand ourselves. But that's not what you're solving for here. Your goal right now is to heal from what you've been through, and I think a big part of that is going to be in accepting that you don't need to dissociate yourself- at least, not so starkly, not with such finality- from the person you were before. A key to accepting that is to recognize that you've done nothing wrong; the blame for exactly zero of what you've been through lies on your shoulders. You've hurt no one; harmed no one."

Even as Blair nods along, her heart blackens because she knows that, on many levels, what her doctor is telling her is untrue.

Her therapist mirrors her nodding briefly. "This has been an extremely productive conversation, Blair, and until we meet again, I want to ask you to do something for me."

Lips puffy, eyes red, Blair scoffs in an impressive show of mock-impatience. "You and your favors."

Eyes crinkled, Dr. Genove snorts. "I want you to spend some time thinking about what parts of that past person, the person from before, were beyond your understanding. Not that you need to try to solve for them now; just try to remember what they were. It's important to humanize yourself in order to accept the entirety of what's happened and move forward in a healthy way, without dissociation or self-deception."

Blair swallows.

"You don't have to share those private thoughts with me if you don't want to, but I encourage you to think through what questions you would ask the person from before, both on that night and prior, knowing what you now know. This will help you see yourself in a more clear and human light." She pauses. "Will you agree to do that?"

Normally she'd phrase this request as _can you do that for me?,_ but Blair Waldorf is unimpressed with _shrinkisms_ , as she called them distastefully on one particularly biting afternoon.

Blair agrees, nodding mutely, to think about the things the person she used to be didn't understand.

ii.

 _Saturday, February 9_

 _Late morning_

Her business in New York wrapped up, her fall collection a universal success, Eleanor Waldorf is packed and ready to depart for her Paris atelier shortly before noon on the morning after Fashion Week's closing reception.

Some might describe this as inattentive parenting; in light of what Blair's just been through, some might say she's underconcerned for her daughter's recovery.

The truth is, her presence doesn't bring comfort to her baby, and that's as plain as day.

That's her own fault, and she knows it.

Eleanor has never been a warm person. She was raised to be a flawless society woman, wife to a well-bred titan and a pillar in her own right, a poised matriarch along the lines of Brooke Astor or Lucy Rockefeller: to blend strength with achievement and elegance and intelligence. Warmth was not part of the equation, not a high enough ROI to be a worthwhile aspiration.

And then the equation came apart somewhere along the way, and try as she might- with the burgeoning company that she built on her own vision and grit gathering speed by the day, her flawless model of daughterhood delivering endless accolades in her academic career, and her reputation as "the woman who had it all" a predictable toast at soirees across the Upper East Side- she could not hold it together.

And after the pieces of her former life cracked and split and fell in humiliating shards for the entire world to see, she realized that all that time, she was aiming at the wrong answer. But by then it was lifetimes past too late.

If she's being honest with herself, Eleanor thinks that morning, she's really not emotionally fit to be a mother.

She _is_ a mother, and she wouldn't trade that fact for anything, but that doesn't change the reality that none of it comes naturally to her. From the time her daughter was tiny and wailing about a bumped knee, all the way through to Eleanor's arrival home two nights ago to find that Blair's room was stripped lock-stock-and-barrel of its personality, she has simply lacked the instinct to be what her daughter needs.

As she and Harold smuggled Blair, bundled in that fluffy robe (bless Charles Bass for saving her from hospital-issue loungewear, Eleanor remembers thinking) and Harold's overcoat, out of the town car and onto the sidewalk in front of their building the night they brought her home from Mt. Sinai, and Blair stopped for a long moment to share an unreadable look with Dorota, Eleanor's heart squeezed and shuddered in her chest. She and Blair had never, and still have never, shared a look like that. When she forces it, Blair stiffens under her gaze or her touch; when she doesn't have the heart or nerve to force it, she shifts easily, and without meaning to, into conversing with her daughter like she's someone in her employ.

So it's not difficult for her to understand that her presence in their penthouse does not make Blair feel secure. And while it's a knife in Eleanor's heart to acknowledge this, she's also cognizant that it's her own hand that's stuck the blade there.

Truthfully, she's mulled all week whether to keep this flight, which has been booked for months: she has shows in Milan and Madrid to prepare for, and has not so much as sketched one design for Paris Couture Week, now just over four months away.

But if Blair would lean into her touch, would reach for her, seek her out, look relieved instead of guarded when she peeks in to say hello- Eleanor would be on the phone with Laurel in a heartbeat, passing the responsibility and autonomy for these shows off to her, murmuring, with finality, "Blair needs me."

She doesn't, though.

Eleanor watches her carefully when she brings up her potential departure, and Blair barely blinks; she simply asks if preparations for the shows are going well so far.

And she swears Blair looks relieved.

So when she holds her baby just before midday, dressed in slim black trousers and a black silk blouse with her hair gathered at her nape, and breathes deeply with her nose buried in Blair's blonde hair (which she still doesn't quite understand), Eleanor blinks hard to clear her eyes of tears and comforts herself that she's doing the best she can for her daughter by leaving her in peace.

iii.

 _Friday, February 8_

 _Evening_

Chuck handles the sterility of her new environment with impressive indifference; he spends more time, even though it's just a few moments, tracking over her puffy eyes as he pries off his shoes and drapes his coat. Her lips are slightly puffy, too, and the corners of her nose and the rims of her eyes are pink.

"Redecorating?" he asks with an automatic smirk.

"Redecorated," she replies. "Past tense."

He nods at the blank walls. They look so different white.

From Marie Antoinette.

From Marc Jacobs.

"Blue's over, anyway," he says.

Her eyes are averted. "Totally."

(They mutually ignore the fact that they're both wearing blue.)

Dorota arrives with their dinner just a few minutes after he comes upstairs, and when they're dining across from each other, cross-legged on her bed with their four-legged trays and Pellegrino in beveled crystal goblets, Chuck asks, with the same air of casualness, "how's therapy going?"

Blair, head twisted as she measures a bite of flounder onto her fork, glances sidelong at him. He's looking at her, and their eyes meet and there's an unexpected twist in her stomach. Their eyes have met so many times, in so many past lives… When she was the girl from before.

She clears her throat, and looks back down at her flounder.

"It's like freshman English." She spears a small bite and says, before she puts it in her mouth: "I could practically do it in my sleep."

He smiles, remembering the operation in this very room on the night before their final papers in freshman English were due.

 _Blair's paper was, of course, finished and proofread and being circulated as an example; Nate sat on the floor, leaning against the foot of her bed, laptop balanced on his bent knees, shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows, hair rumpled from numerous runnings-through of his fingers; Serena sprawled on her stomach froglike in the middle of the floor, knees wide, bare feet bouncing idly off each other in the air; Chuck lounged in Blair's vanity chair, reading a copy of Blair's paper for sport (naturally, he outsourced his own assignment, and got Blair's signoff earlier in the evening), absently toying with his cufflinks._

 _Blair knelt behind Serena, reading over her shoulder while the blonde bit her lower lip, blue eyes tracking each line at a pace that could be described as frantic, but stopping constantly to make adjustments as Blair leant forward and pointed out corrections:_

" _change comma to semicolon"_

" _always use 'that' instead of 'which' when possible"_

" _period_ inside _the quotation marks- I know it looks weird, but that's the rule"_

 _-in a voice that left no room for argument._

" _Blair," Nate groaned on a tortured sigh, "will you be done soon?"_

" _I need her," Serena insisted, throwing him a desperate look, causing an incredulous hand flap from Nate:_

" _But she's gone over your paper like sixteen times!"_

" _It's not_ my _fault I got assigned a harder book than you," Serena pouted. "_ Inferno _is a nightmare-"_

" _Oh, like_ GreatExpectations _is a walk in the park?!" Nate fired back, defensive._

" _Children, please," Chuck mock-soothed, smirking and rubbing his closed eyes at the same time, "Mommy loves you both equally."_

 _Serena shot Nate a triumphant look, to which he rolled his eyes and flopped his head back on the bed._

 _All the while, Blair kept her eyes focused on Serena's screen, reaching around the blonde to key down to the bottom of the last paragraph as Serena argued, one corner of her mouth smiling at the blondes' fighting over her._

 _Her hair was in a ponytail that night, tied with a yellow ribbon, and she had her headband off by the time they all arrived. Her hair was shorter than now, just shoulderblade-length, and the ends of her ponytail brushed back and forth over her shoulder (navy crewneck sweater, no collar underneath, navy pleated skirt) when she turned her head. Serena was in her ponytail-on-the-top-of-the-head phase (and an Avril-Lavigne-reminiscent vest over her white button-down), but she was constantly irritated because it bobbed over her face every time she leant forward._

 _Blair finished with Serena and slid over next to Nate- not enough distance to warrant standing up fully- and he drew her in close, wrapping an arm around her and kissing the top of her head: "She loves me more," he informed Serena, who stuck out her tongue. Blair leant into him and scolded him to be nice, pleasure at the attention flushing on her cheeks._

 _While Blair was reading his Dickensian analysis, Nate looked at Chuck, nodding his head in Blair's direction: "How's her paper?"_

 _Chuck glanced up from the pages that were spread on his lap, ankle crossed over opposite knee, several inches of navy and yellow argyle sock showing, and made a skeptical face._

" _I don't believe she wrote it."_

 _Blair's eyes rolled. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."_

" _Come on, Waldorf, Goethe? When's the last time you made a deal with the devil?"_

" _Didn't I give you a new pen when yours ran out of ink the other day," Blair said sweetly, without looking up, "in exchange for an IOU?"_

 _Nate snorted deep in his throat, and Serena looked up gleefully, giggling, "oh,_ burn _!"_

 _Chuck snickered, and it turned into a yawn, while Nate chuckled into Blair's hair as he kissed her head again, murmuring that she was his angel._

 _An hour later, Serena was asleep on Blair's bed- always the lightweight when it came to academic stamina- and the boys were shaking themselves awake, standing and stretching as they prepared to go home._

 _Blair's ponytail curved around the base of her neck, just touching the ridge of her collarbone, as she sat upright on her knees, Nate's laptop perched on the edge of her bed, retyping his conclusion- this study session ended, like countless others, with her rewriting so many of his and Serena's sentences that she essentially authored the trifecta of their assignments._

 _She finished, rubbing at her eyes and telling Nate she'd do a last pass in the morning, and he helped her up and hugged her goodnight, murmuring appreciation at her temple while Chuck lazed in the doorway, and she didn't think to wonder whether he was looking over her shoulder at sleep-rumpled Serena._

 _One last kiss, a smile on her lips, she nodded over Nate's departing shoulder at Chuck._

" _Bass."_

" _Waldorf."_

He looks at her now, puffy, haunted, chewing her flounder with concentration and avoiding his gaze, and lets the threadbare deflection slide. Following suit, he moves his fork into his flounder, and they settle into comfortable silence.

"Are you feeling better?" she says a while later.

He glances up in surprise.

"You had a sore throat last night," she reminds him, pointedly. Her eyes hold a slight challenge. "From crying yourself to sleep the night before."

She reaches for her Pellegrino and gives him a wry look.

"I'm still recovering from the trauma," he teases, organizing a bite on his fork.

She's still, and to his surprise, when he glances back up at her, she hasn't moved. She's watching him.

"What?"

"Do you really feel better?" she presses.

He guffaws dismissively. "I wasn't sick or anything." His tone is careful. Does she think he's contagious? A grain of dread nudges into his stomach at the thought that she might send him home in an effort to avoid catching something.

She doesn't comment. She doesn't move. He feels her watching him, and now he's the one avoiding her eyes- a quick vision of Nate, shaky, hauling himself to crouching, splits across his vision- as he takes a bite of flounder.

After a protracted pause, she puts her glass back down and shifts in her seat.

"Maybe a good night's sleep will fix us both," she says, quietly, as if to herself.

As if on cue, they both glance at each other, again, and then away with perfect timing. Mutually unseen, Chuck relaxes; Blair smiles softly.

When they've both finished their dinners, and Dorota is on her way up to take away their trays, Blair clears her throat again.

"I won't be coming back to school this quarter, for sure."

Chuck nods slowly. "Do you think next quarter?"

She raises one pale blue shoulder. He notices that her movements are a less stiff than they were just a week or two ago. "It depends on… how things go."

"Yeah." He knows what she means: not just therapy, not just her injuries, not just her emotional state; it depends on whether the media storm dies down and anyone at school can literally talk about anyone else.

Which doesn't seem altogether likely.

He opens his mouth as a thought comes to him, then pauses. "You're not…"

Dorota comes in just then, and asks them if they enjoyed their dinner, and says the tea tray is read and she'll be back up with it in a minute. When both trays are gone and they're facing each other with nothing in between them, Blair prompts: "I'm not what?"

"Not thinking about… not coming back?"

The last three words come out at a lower pitch than the first three.

Blair smiles. "Mmm… 'High School Dropout' does sound like a tempting subtitle for my biography."

He smiles, too, glancing down at her duvet.

"Not thinking about going somewhere else?"

She knew what he meant the first time, of course- they both know that. She takes a long breath in between parted lips, appearing to be working through something in her mind, and then says, cautious yet firm, "No. Running away won't do me any good."

He's about to reply- what, he's not sure- when she licks her lips and continues.

"Pretending it didn't happen won't do me any good."

Dorota's feet are audible on the stairs through the open bedroom door. When she's set up the tea tray on Blair's nightstand and said her conditional goodnight (that Blair will text her if she needs anything else), Blair waits a moment, and then eases herself up and crosses the floor and locks her bedroom door.

They're quiet tonight; they're often quiet on the phone, but there's something different, more pensive, about their silence tonight. It's punctuated by an occasional moment of accidental eye contact, like they're both checking on each other, each knowing the other isn't divulging the full picture, neither willing to press the issue.

Blair has only finished a half cup of chamomile when she announces she's tired.

"Me, too," Chuck murmurs into his cup.

She eyes his chest.

"No tie tonight," she observes.

He almost quips back that she still has his navy one from the other night, but given the purging her room has gone through since he was last here 48 hours ago, he decides not to bring it up. His tie might have been donated to the City Rescue Mission by now.

"Chuck Bass, Rule-Follower Extraordinaire," he replies instead.

He gets up to turn off the lamp on her vanity while she reaches for the one at her bedside; they click off in rapid succession. His eyes adjust to the dark as he crosses back to her bed and so it is that he watches as she reaches over, moving carefully, and tugs down his side of the duvet. He stops by the side of the bed and watches her finish.

She looks up, and their eyes meet in the dark one last time before he climbs in.

She slips from consciousness quickly- he can tell by her breathing, and the way her lower legs stretch and release a little, shifting the duvet, as they do when she falls asleep- and he follows, slower, remembering that night with the English papers, Blair, yellow ribbon in her hair, cheeks warm with pleasure, snidely referring to him as the devil.

iv.

 _Saturday, February 9_

 _Midday_

This final meeting of the chairs of the planning subcommittees for the inaugural Met Valentine's Day Gala (officially, the 'Metropolitan Museum of Art Winter Benefit'), over an admittedly inventive modern-day interpretation of high tea – oysters Rockefeller and canape-sized quiche Lorraine paired with smoky Earl Grey; fluffy custards intercut with lemon-infused berry compote alongside Fortnum's Pistachio and Clotted Cream, steaming up from petite, saucerless espresso cups – should be a pleasant affair, tucked away as they are in the intimate Rose Room, cloistered so carefully from the weekend bustle of the museum around them that one might think they alone inhabit the building, that they're the first to discover the view of the park from its slanted paned wall of windows.

They've gone over every last item, from the final once-over of the decorations in the Great Hall, with its enormous sweeping blood-red curtains at the front of the foyer, whisked open by heavy gold ropes at both sides; with its catering staff in head-to-toe black; with its canopy, should anyone look up ( _and oh, they'll look up_ ), done in layer upon layer of gathered gauze in that same crimson, and clusters of black roses to anchor them to the ceiling- and confirmed that the scaffolding to build this is already being assembled, though the actual decoration will not happen until Friday night, with a lower canopy being installed to obscure the views of Saturday's museum visitors until the late-afternoon closing; with its unexpected centerpiece of individual black roses mounted vertically on long, needle-thin spindles driven straight into their stems so they stand separately atop the erstwhile information booth; with its endless parade of black candles, thick cylinders at varying heights installed in custom-made gold trays lining the juncture of wall and floor the entire way around the Hall, surrounding the centerpiece and every pillar, and continuing, with breathtaking effect, all the way up the Grand Staircase and around its mezzanine, the glow flickering against the Grand Balcony's sets of gold candelabra and their long black tapers, looming, not just in the corners but at irregular and dense intervals, like a forest of morose willows – to the Court itself, done in similar fashion but fitted with temporary elevated flooring in thick glass, underneath which a sea of thousands of black votives will stretch from wall to wall, so that Gala attendees tread above a trembling universe of candlelight; a single, understated red silk heart, donated by Hermes, temporarily affixed to the end of Diana's arrow (a happy result of an awkward conversation wherein a young subcommittee member bubbled that _the Court_ _couldn't_ be _a better setting for a Valentine's Day benefit; there's a statue of Cupid right in the middle!_ , which was tactfully ignored by her committee chairs, while her seatmate scribbled her a note that the statue is of Diana the Huntress); black candles lining the façade's windows, between parted swathes of crimson curtains, providing the backdrop to the makeshift orchestra pit, with its sounds wafting up the levels of mezzanine, where the crème de la crème of New York City will float, with goblet and flute, with painted lips and polished cap-toe Oxfords and flawless coifs and starched collars and pleasantries and bile and every other trapping of Manhattan wealth brought to bear.

They've gone over the names of those who have been confirmed for the head tables, those on the Court's floor, as well as the tables on the mezzanines; they've finalized the roster of toast-givers and the gifts for the musicians and the conductor, on loan from the New York Philharmonic for the evening.

They've confirmed, through a clipped conversation wherein all the participants managed to look disapproving, that Anne Archibald, a former committee member and one-time chair of the Gifts and Donors subcommittee for the museum, has RSVPd her regrets after having gracefully resigned from the committee two months ago.

With a sad shake of the head, the chair of the Attendance and Participation subcommittee comments then, nearly under her breath, that Mrs. Howard Archibald is _veering dangerously close to recluse status._

The comment is met with an admonishing glance from the chair of the Logistics subcommittee, Lily Van der Woodsen, for whom this meeting, despite its decadent subject matter and air of impending triumph, is not a pleasant affair.

The word _recluse_ rings in her ears long after the offending comment is hastily buried under a conversation about the announcements that will go out, starting tomorrow, that the Court will be closed from noon Friday (so the candles and flooring can be laid).

 _My darling, you're becoming a recluse_.

Lily glances over her shoulder with a start, the voice so clear in her left ear that she's certain the speaker is right behind her. As she turns back to the table, a halfhearted smile quirking at her lips, more than one pair of eyes dart to where she's just looked. They linger over her for longer than necessary, and nerves prickle at her spine, until she realizes someone has spoken to her and is awaiting an answer.

"I'm sorry," Lily says smoothly, her voice an apologetic hum, "what was that?"

"Coming back to the outstanding RSVPs," says the Attendance and Participation subcommittee chair, "we've received a regret from Eleanor Waldorf, and Harold as well, not that that was unexpected- but," the woman, Vivienne, shifts her eyes uncomfortably, "we were wondering whether you might have any insight about the attendance of their daughter."

Lily blinks. Her lips part and then close, not wanting to speak for Blair, even as her stomach flips with something tense and familiar.

But then she envisions Blair- at whose penthouse her own children have spent countless unplanned evenings- at the Gala, sitting alone at a table of society odds and ends, the light from a million black candles glittering in her forlorn eyes, having mustered herself to take that first step back into the world- and says with resolution, "if Blair chooses to attend, she'll sit at the head table with the Bass-Van der Woodsens."

There's an awkward pause where a few of the assembled chairs exchange looks. "Well, that's- " Vivienne pauses and licks her lips. "That's very generous, of course, but your table is set for seven, as your daughter is the only one of the junior members to have confirmed she'll be attending with a date-" she breaks off, uncomfortable under Lily's narrowed eyes. "And while we are- _sensitive_ to Miss Waldorf's plight, of course, the precedent to not rearrange seating has been upheld to a high standard in the past- we all remember that unfortunate incident with Diana Taylor at the garden party a few years ago- so it's difficult to make exceptions to precedent- "

Lily almost snorts, but thankfully keeps it to a sharp exhalation. "If Blair Waldorf chooses to attend, you will find her a chair." Vivienne looks like she's about to argue again, and Lily cuts her off. "Or I'll give her mine."

Another thought occurs to her, then, and she lays it on for good measure:

"And while we're on the topic of _recluses_ , I suggest we also remain flexible on the seating arrangement for Nathaniel Archibald, who will be more than welcome to join my family's table as well. If there are issues," she almost-mocks, leaning forward, "Bart and I will _both_ give up our seats."

The thrill of being, for once, the parent among her daughter's friends who has her life together rushes through her, neutralizing the ugly mass that settles in her stomach whenever she's unoccupied lately.

Even if it's as misleading as that Hermes heart at the tip of the arrow.

v.

 _Friday, February 8_

 _Late evening_

Serena blinks at her phone, which she's pulled slowly away from her ear as the line drones on in silence. It went silent, right in the middle of a ring, and she tried saying _Blair, Blair?, Blair?,_ and then finally, hesitantly, _Chuck…?_ , but there's nothing on the other end.

With a sinking feeling, she ends the call and tries again, hating herself even as she does it.

Her eyes close, wet lashes brushing her cheeks, as it rings busy, that quick percussion that happens when someone is on the other line or the line is out of service.

She just…

Her watery blue eyes meet their twins in her bathroom mirror.

She just talked to Blair. The line can't be out of service.

Maybe someone else called, and Blair is talking to them now, or there was a glitch and-

She drops the phone, still buzzing its mockery at her, onto a stray hand towel near her sink.

Steps back and leans forward, gripping the edge of the bathroom counter, wrists bent, long golden arms stark against the ruffled black dress she wore to the Fashion Week farewell reception at The Plaza.

Breathes out, shaky, staring herself in the face.

"It's okay," she tells herself- she may say it more than once; she doesn't remember later- but the biting buzz of Blair's rejection beats in her ears: _No. No. No. No. No. No. No._

Her gaze flits to the drawer where she keeps hairpins, tweezers, fingernail scissors, pocket-packs of tissues, and an old Altoid tin that's usually empty.

Usually.

 _No. No. No. No. No. No. No._

She shakes her head, insistent, and grabs her phone before she can think twice.

And dials the one person who always makes her feel better.

vi.

 _Saturday, February 9_

 _Midday_

Shortly after Eleanor leaves, the box arrives.

It's long; nearly six feet, and probably three feet wide. A foot deep.

White, sturdy material, tied with a tasteful black ribbon.

Dorota calls her out onto the landing to see it. Dorota knows what it is, knew what it was the moment she saw it, and Blair does, too.

She comes down a few steps and stands, palm light on the bannister, and says: "Open it."

Dorota glances down, and then back up. "But- are you sure you not want to…"

"I couldn't be less interested," Blair says severely, but if that were true, she wouldn't have Dorota open it.

And they both know that, too.

Dorota unties the ribbon slowly, in case Blair changes her mind, and Blair watches in petulant silence (more to prove her point than anything) while Dorota braces her hands on both sides of the box, which she's laid flat on the floor in Blair's full view, and tugs.

Blair's eyes slide upward, mirroring Dorota's motions as she carefully holds up the gown. Her face is impassive.

The gown is stunning- black, what appears at this distance to be velvet, figure-hugging and with a classic strapless neckline. Its cut is decisively mermaid- true mermaid, cinched all the way down to the knee, with a dramatic flair and a train that would follow her up a staircase like a minion.

There's an envelope pinned to the embroidered midsection that says, in clear handwritten script: _Blair_.

Dorota turns, almost cringing, at Blair's continued silence.

"I'll donate it," Blair says after staring at the gown for several long moments.

Nodding, Dorota turns toward the box as if to lay the gown back inside.

She freezes as Blair's voice loops across the foyer: "Bring it up and put it in my closet in the meantime."

Blair turns and goes upstairs without another word.

The gown is settled in her otherwise-empty closet (unless one counts the stacks of lounge pants and sweaters on the shelves just inside the door), and Blair is back on her bed, book in her hands- she's been holding a different book nearly every day, to the point that Dorota somewhat doubts she's actually reading any of them- when Dorota asks her when she'd like lunch.

Blair looks up at her.

"In thirty minutes," she says coolly, "and not a moment before."

Dorota pauses as she crosses the threshold and then, even though they're now alone in the penthouse, reaches behind her without looking, finds the doorknob and pulls Blair's bedroom door closed.

When her footsteps on the staircase fade into silence, Blair gets out of bed and locks the door behind her.

She hesitates at the door of her closet, looking for a long moment at her own hand on the knob.

She reaches to the side without looking and flips on the light.

Yes, the gown is velvet; it's embroidered subtly around the torso, which, she's delighted- not delighted; _indifferent_ \- to find, has a waist-cinching corset inside. The velvet is extremely good quality, and not too thick, so it would avoid that horrible effect of making her look slightly thicker herself.

Not _her._ The _wearer._

She swallows as her fingertips touch the envelope. It's not handwriting she recognizes. She thought, for a moment, that this was a gift from her mother, but when Dorota opened the box, it was very clearly not an Eleanor Waldorf design.

Her other hand comes up to grasp the straight pin- long, gold, with a pearldrop on one end- and pull it out.

The note is from Carolina Herrera.

It says it is, anyway- Blair reasons that an assistant probably wrote it, maybe using a signature stamp or, at most, sliding it in front of the designer for a perfunctory signature.

 _Miss Waldorf (Blair)-_

 _As an admirer of your personal style and a fellow woman who believes in communicating power through appearance, I enclose this sample from my upcoming couture collection, which has not been debuted at any show and is not scheduled to be so until this summer in Paris._

 _It would be my honor to dress you for the upcoming benefit at the Metropolitan Museum, should you be attending._

 _Either way, please accept this gift, and my compliments._

 _Yours,_

 _Carolina Herrera_

Blair closes her eyes briefly, and then opens them and places the note, and its envelope and its pin, on the shelf above where the gown hangs.

She stands there, opposite the black velvet that faces her in the barren whiteness of her closet, and tries to decide if the gown is mocking her or begging her.

vii.

 _Friday, February 8_

 _Late evening_

She sighs, sinking into the four pillows that surround her in her bed.

 _It will all be okay,_ she thinks to herself, curled on her side in warm cozy pajamas, black cotton-silk blend with pink piping at the wrists and ankles and lapel- _it will._

She closes her eyes because they hurt from crying and being rubbed. Vaguely, she wonders where her sleep mask is, but she decides she's okay without it.

 _Everything is okay._

Her freshly-washed, sweet-smelling hair is heaped carelessly on the pillow behind her.

Blair will forgive her. She will.

In time, she'll forgive her; all she has to do is wait.

 _Just patience,_ she thinks. _Patience._

And when Blair forgives her, she'll be able to forgive herself.

 _And then it will all be okay._

For the first time in weeks, arms curled around a down-filled pillow, body still, mind quiet, Serena smiles as she falls asleep.

viii.

 _Saturday, February 9_

 _Afternoon_

Serena's phone buzzes somewhere in the depths of her purse as she seeks it with one hand, other hand holding her cappuccino to her lips while she stands before a rainbow of silk and satin and beading.

It vibrates against her fingers, finally, and she withdraws it and flips it open without taking her eyes from the gown in front of her.

"Hello?"

"Serena, hey, it's Nate."

"Nate," she says warmly, his name stretching to two syllables in a hum that's both intimate and impersonal. "What's up?"

"Oh, I- " he sounds a bit taken aback, like he called the wrong person. "I just wanted to say hi and see how you were doing today."

"I'm good," Serena says simply, running her eyes up and down the silhouette of the gown. "How are you?"

Nate hesitates. "I'm good, too… thanks. I, uh, I was a little worried about you after last night."

"Oh," Serena says, like he's bringing up something that happened ten years ago. " _That_. I'm sorry about that. I was just upset."

"Yeah, yeah- I could, uh, tell." He clears his throat. "And I mean, you have every reason to be. You've been through a lot lately- "

"Sorry, Nate, can you hang on just a second?" -without waiting for a response: "Thanks."

She covers the mouthpiece with her thumb and smiles at the approaching stylist. "Could I see that one in my size, please?" Both hands occupied (cappuccino), she tilts her head to point at the one she likes.

There's an undeniable swish as Serena moves her thumb from the mic. "Sorry about that."

"No worries. So, uh, you're good?"

"I'm good," she says, turning on her heel to wander further down the rainbow. "What about you, are you good?" she teases.

He chuckles in her ear. It's easy to make Nate laugh.

(There's not much it's not easy to make Nate do.)

"I'm good, I'm good," he says good-naturedly. "What are you up to?"

"I'm actually at Reem Acra, looking for what I'm wearing to the gala."

He sputters. "You haven't picked out your dress yet?"

"I know, I'm way behind."

She stops in front of a gorgeous white creation: a beaded bodice with chiffon cap sleeves and snowy silk jersey that would move flawlessly with her.

"Do you have your tux yet?" she asks him.

"Chuck and I actually went earlier. I'm going pretty classic, so it was an easy choice. Chuck, on the other hand." He snorts, not needing to explain. Chuck and Blair are both notoriously picky about tailoring and as a rule, Chuck generally needs more than one fitting to get a tux the way he wants it.

Serena laughs, biting her lower lip as her eyes rake over the white. "How many is he deciding between?"

"Three, I think. We're going back on Tuesday. Mine will be done and he still won't have decided. And then the tailor's going to have to rush his alterations- you know, usual Chuck stuff."

"Please," Serena rolls her eyes, "Blair has literally gotten us banned from more than one tailor. I've learned to go on my own. She actually yelled at this woman in Russian last year."

"She speaks Russian?"

"She memorized insults ahead of time." Serena turns away from the chiffon cap sleeves, smiling at the memory. "I think Dorota taught her."

Nate smiles, too, memories of Blair's unbridled anger provoking an odd nostalgia. The image brings a pervasive sadness over him- and something more palpable: guilt.

"Serena," he says suddenly, "speaking of Blair…"

"It's going to be okay, Nate," she says with equal purpose.

He blinks, surprised. "What?"

"This whole- everything. It's going to be okay."

But she's not smiling, and he knows because he can hear in her voice when she is.

"It is?" he asks, cautious.

"Yes."

"Okay." He swallows, unsure what to say. "Because, I just want you to know, what we were talking about last night- we all love you."

"It's all going to be okay," she repeats, sounding distant.

He wonders if maybe she's distracted because she's shopping.

"Definitely," he agrees, but a bit uneasily. "As long as you know nothing's your fault, and that we're all here for you."

She nearly cuts him off. "You know, Nate…" Her tone is searching. "You're a special guy."

His heart warms.

Just a degree or two.

"Well, thanks," he says, flattery evident in his tone. "You're a special girl."

She smiles, just at the corner of her mouth, as her eyes slide over a few more gowns.

"Hey, I have to get going," she says with urgency. "Talk to you later?"

"Definitely," he says with the same warmth, and holds the phone in his hand for a long moment after they hang up.

As she drops the phone back in her bag, the stylist lets her know the gown she liked is waiting in a dressing room: "Are you ready to give it a try?"

"I think I'll look around a little more," Serena says, gesturing with her cappuccino.

ix.

 _Friday, February 8_

 _Very late evening_

He wakes in stages, hovering for agonizing moments in that awkward place where the mind fuses reality with dreams, thinking- _thinking_?- that what he's hearing is part of his dream.

And it's an awful dream.

Which should be the first clue, and should jerk him straight to consciousness, because, despite Serena's best efforts, he's been sleeping superlatively beside Blair these last few hours. After the last few nights, when frenetic, unsettling images have polluted his sleep and followed him, terribly, into waking, his mind calmed somehow next to her and he slid from consciousness into a deep, dreamless rest. Even after the shrilling of Blair's bedside phone, the annoyance of Serena's whining (and the question of how often Blair has had to deal with this and not mentioned it to him prodding even more irritatingly), and the potent confusion at Blair's reaction, he managed to sink again into that blissful, black unconsciousness.

So, then, a desperate voice, female, familiar, close to him, murmuring with an increasing note of anguish, should wake him immediately- but it doesn't.

As his mind suspends him between the harsh planes of the real world and the malleable dimensions of the dream world, he hears this pleading in a dream that he's not even aware is a dream. And the raw desperation in her voice reaches deep into his subconscious and makes him dream horrible, unspeakable things- things that, later, he'll swallow a double of scotch in one long drink as he tries to forget.

He wakes, finally.

He knows before he opens his eyes what's happening.

"Blair," he whispers, hoarse with sleep, as he hauls himself up.

She's curled on her side, her knees drawn to her chest, her face mashed into her pillow. The duvet is kicked halfway off her legs; her pleading is muffled, but the room is so silent he can make out what she's saying.

Anyway, it just two words.

 _Please._

 _Don't._

"Blair," he tries again, clearing his throat, covering his mouth with the back of his wrist as though he's afraid to wake her.

As though that's not exactly what he wants.

The thought that it's possibly a bad idea to wake someone who's having a nightmare- Serena has said this more than once; something about making the person go into shock?- occurs to him, but he brushes it aside as he slides closer to Blair, who is practically on the edge of the bed.

He lays a hand on her shoulder, carefully, through the duvet. She's wound tight, her shoulder stiff beneath the layers of fabric. "Blair," he says at normal volume, leaning over to see her face. No use- her hair has fallen over it.

She murmurs again; he thinks for a second that maybe she can hear him, like he heard her. He holds his breath and hopes she'll wake up on her own.

But then she pulls her legs closer to her torso, draws a quick, shaky breath, and says:

"Please- _please_ \- "

He exhales, pulse kicking into overdrive as he reaches for her, rolling her onto her back with effort.

"Blair- Blair- wake up…"

She tenses at the feeling of being forced onto her back- her face twists, the scars from her stitches imperceptible in the near-darkness, but he can make out the elegant lines of her brows as her expression contorts like it does when she's about to cry, and she whispers, barely audible, " _don't_ …"

-and his heart thuds in his chest at what she must be dreaming right now.

The images are hellfire in his veins.

He sits up fully.

" _Blair_." He grasps her shoulders and squeezes, then her upper arms. "Blair. It's…" he breaks off and swallows. "It's me."

She's panting, hands drawn close to chest like prey covering her vulnerable spot, and he grows frantic and shakes her.

His voice hardens and he nearly drags her up to sitting, praying her mother is sound asleep, though he knows the rooms in the penthouse are very nearly soundproof. "Blair, wake up," he growls, shaking her harder.

All at once, her eyes fly open.

They stay open, wide, unblinking, for several long moments. Her shoulders are knitted tightly; her arms are locked to her sides; her fists are pressed together over her heart.

They stare at each other.

He realizes she's not breathing.

"Breathe," he whispers, trying to be gentle. "Breathe."

She blinks first, recognition dawning in her eyes, and then she opens her mouth and blows out a long, shuddering breath. Her posture unwinds and she sags a bit in his grasp. When the tension begins to ease, he realizes how warm she is- her pajamas are damp under his fingers.

Guiltily, he wonders how long he loafed in his own dream before he woke up to hers.

"Are you okay?" he asks, voice low, as she takes an equally long breath in.

She nods, gaze skittish, and looks around the room as though checking to make sure no one else is there. His jaw twitches in anger at this and he relaxes, with effort.

He eases her up to sitting, while her shoulders rise and fall with the exertion of someone who's just run the Central Park loop. She's breathing out of her mouth, something she hates outside of erotic moments, and she turns her head and gazes at her bedside phone for a long moment.

When he's sure she's sitting up on her own, he lets go of her arms- hoping, somewhat worriedly, that she won't have bruises from his grip tomorrow- and tentatively touches her fists, still clenched as they are just below her collarbones.

Her eyes snap back to his at the contact. He shies back, but then rests his fingertips on her knuckles.

"Hey," he tries, reverting back to whispering.

Her eyes are wide, and her blinks feel protracted, like she has to remember and consciously execute each one.

He licks his lips, trying to read her unreadable eyes, and touches her hands and says, because he feels as lost as she does: "It's me."

Another moment, and she loosens her fists, and the backs of her fingers brush against his. She's breathless and whispers back, trying at a smile, "Chuck Bass."

She doesn't execute it well, but relief floods him anyway. "Chuck Bass," he agrees, trying to mirror her expression.

"Are you okay?" she asks quietly.

He pauses. "Are you?"

She swallows. "I'm… disgusting," she says vacantly.

They look at each other. He doesn't have to ask what she was dreaming about.

He tells her she's not disgusting, because it's all he can think of to say.

To his surprise, she bends her head toward him. He slides closer, and she leans on his chest for a few quiet moments and feels his heart thumping against her cheek. He loops one arm loosely around her, searching for the right thing to say or do, and it washes over him how absolutely unequipped he is to handle this- all of this.

"You're safe," he tries, his hand finding the spot on her arm that he might very well have bruised and resting there.

He feels one of her hands land, suddenly, open-palm over his heart.

Eventually she straightens and says she's going to take a shower, slipping from his embrace like they do this all the time.

He stays like that, half-sitting-half-kneeling, until he hears the water turn on, and he sinks back against the pillows.

x.

 _Saturday, February 9_

 _Evening_

Serena comes to "family dinner" that night with an unnerving air of calm about her. She's dressed rather conservatively, in a miniskirt, crocheted tights, suede ankle boots and an oversized turtleneck, with chandelier earrings that don't quite go with the rest of the outfit; most mismatched, though, is the placid half-smile on her otherwise blank face.

Bart greets her when the Van der Woodsen trio arrives at Le Bernardin (Chuck arrived early, followed by Bart; the three blondes arrive in a gaggle at four minutes past the hour), not having seen her in a few days, and asks if she's feeling better. Serena simpers back, "oh, _much_ ," without batting an eye.

She turns, almost immediately, to Chuck.

"How are _you_ feeling, Chuck?" she asks.

"I feel great, sis, thanks," he replies, sparing her a glance while he reaches for his ice water.

They haven't spoken directly since she avoided his question about whether or not she took his oxies on Thursday morning (which she obviously did).

Of course, they've spoken indirectly since then, though Chuck's the only one who knows that for a fact.

"Do you?" she presses, signaling yes when the waiter inclines the wine bottle toward her. "Did you sleep well last night?"

He holds his angry sigh in.

"I did," he says, and other than that one incident, it's the truth. "And you?"

"Like a lamb." Her voice is butter-soft. "What time did you get in? I looked for you." She props her elbow on the table and rests her chin in her open palm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Erik's shoulders sink a little as he sighs. He has the luxury of not needing to conceal it.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Chuck says, leaning back as the waiter pours him some red also. "Did you need me for something?"

Lily, after a hello kiss and hand-squeeze with Bart, has been watching this volley, and cuts in: "Charles, it just so happens that _I_ need you; it turns out there are 34 combinations of features on recessed lighting that are suitable for the master bathroom suite, and I could use your feedback."

Serena, Chuck and Erik all look at her. Bart is surveying the starter menu, holding it up in front of him in an unconsciously fatherlike manner.

Lily smiles, beatific.

Chuck smiles back. "I'd be delighted."

"Mmm," Serena agrees gleefully, reaching for the bread basket. "Now that Fashion Week's over, he should have a lot more time for family stuff."

He shoots her a _not now_ look. "Did I miss plans that we had?" he inquires again, his voice carefully neutral.

"No, I just meant all the receptions and everything." She blinks back innocently. "That's where you were last night, right? Now that those aren't a daily thing anymore, hopefully you'll be available more. That's all I meant."

"You'll have to get in line," Erik pipes up, unexpectedly coming to his rescue. "We have several brother-bonding nights coming up. And I have a strict no-cancellation policy." He makes a show of winking, which Lily chuckles at, picking up her menu also.

"I'll have my people call your people to confirm details," Chuck replies, sending him a grateful smile.

"What about my people?" Serena mock-pouts.

"Yours, too. And yours," he says to Lily.

Lily sends him a teasing air-kiss. "Thank you, my darling."

"So," Serena says to him a minute later, after having pretended to review her menu- he knows she didn't actually read it- "which afterparty did you go to last night?"

He pretends not to realize she's talking to him.

"Chuck?"

He glances up. "Hmm?"

She looks at him coolly. "Which afterparty did you go to last night?"

Erik looks up and his eyes flick between the two. "And more importantly, was it better than The Plaza, where she went?"

He suppresses a smile. _Noble effort, my friend._

"I was tired," he says, realizing at once that the lie is not worth it. "I went to bed."

Serena glitters as she pounces. "Oh, is that so? Because I came by your suite, and no one was home."

Behind her, Erik's mouth tightens.

"Doorbell was silenced and I wore earplugs," he drawls, trying to keep the satisfaction out of his tone. "I wasn't feeling great the night before and wanted to get a good night's rest."

She deflates a little.

Lily's head tilts thoughtfully on her interlaced fingers; like mother, like daughter; her elbows are propped on the table.

"I hope you're feeling better?"

"Much," he confirms, tipping his water glass toward her.

"Excuse the interruption, but I'm starving," Bart declares suddenly, glancing around. The waiter appears as if by magic and takes their order. (As predicted, Serena scans the menu quickly and picks out something on the spot.)

"And how have you been feeling?" Chuck asks Serena, leaning over to her while Bart and Lily are turned the other direction to confer with the waiter, who stands behind their chairs. "Those oxies never turned up."

"Someone must have taken them while you had your earplugs in," Serena replies- under her breath, yet bitingly- shooting him a disdainful look that makes him smirk. When she turns away, he sees her and Erik exchange a glance out of the corner of his eye.

Erik looks tense, Chuck notes- he's looked tense a lot lately.

Lily waits for Bart to finish ordering, reaching for what Chuck initially thinks is his knee under the table- and he's surprised at the intimacy- but then their hands emerge, cupped together, on the tablecloth. She picks up her wineglass with her free hand. "I'd like to propose a toast, my darlings," she says, a glowing matriarch, glancing with what looks very much like pride around the dinner table. The irony of this makes him smile, which he passes off as warm agreement. She draws out the pause for a few moments- the Van Der Woodsens have a flair for dramatic timimg- and exchanges a smile with Bart.

Raises her glass a little higher.

"To family."

The three young Bass-der-Woodsens raise their glasses, also.

"Family," Bart says.

"To family," Chuck agrees, with Erik and Serena echoing, _fam-family._

xi.

 _Saturday, February 9_

 _Late evening_

After dinner, which ends with Serena lingering behind him at the exit of the restaurant long enough to ride home with him instead of their parents, and spending the drive trying in her Repentant Serena way to make pleasant small talk to overwrite her recent unsavory behavior- a maneuver that would normally earn her a half-lidded glare, but under the circumstances he goes along with it, both because she's obviously struggling mightily (though aren't they all?) and because she's actually correct that he's lying to her- he stands still in his kitchen and holds his phone, trying to decide whether he should call Blair.

It's not that late, he reasons. He's probably not going to wake her up.

But the harsh shrill of her bedside phone- assuming it's even been plugged back in- echoes still in his ears, and he can't be the one to wake her up tonight.

 _When he left this morning, before the sun came up and long before Eleanor surfaced into consciousness, Blair's eyes were clouded with sleep, her breathing heavy with drowsiness, but her small smile reached her eyes when he touched her arm and told her goodbye. She took a minute, licking her lips, and his mouth went a little dry at what she might be about to say._

 _And then:_

" _Your tie is in the left drawer of my vanity."_

 _Just a whisper._

 _He laughed, somewhere between relieved and disappointed, and said thanks, and as he went to pull away, she turned her hand over and squeezed his fingers for a quick second, and then laid her head back down._

He knows she ultimately slept well last night, which does not account for the nerves he feels at the prospect of calling her.

He just doesn't want to wake her, he reasons several minutes later, frustrated at his own mental fixation, as he wipes the shower steam from his bathroom mirror while brushing his teeth. He just doesn't want to _disturb_ her; _she obviously isn't having the easiest time sleeping- who knows how often she's having-_

His phone lights up a split second before it begins vibrating, and from where it sits on top of his bed, he can see that it's her.

He doesn't even stop to put his toothbrush down.

"Hi," he answers.

She pauses, and he hears a smile in her voice. But she sounds a little shy. "I'm not waking you, am I?"

He smirks at their alikeness. "No. But you're interrupting my teeth-brushing."

"God forbid," she says dramatically.

"How was your day?" he asks, and finishes brushing while she replies.

"Well… I slept well," she murmurs, and a thrill lights in him like she's just confessed something deeply intimate.

He tips his head back so he can speak through the foam of toothpaste in his mouth. "Me, too."

He can almost hear the grin she flashes on the other end.

"My physical therapist is pleased with my progress," she says pensively, "and my mother went back to Paris this afternoon, so I no longer feel like I'm living with someone who speaks a different language."

He smirks, even as he rinses with mouthwash: Eleanor, not Dorota, is the one in the Waldorf household who makes Blair feel that way.

"That's a lot of good," he observes. "Anything else?"

She pauses, glancing at her closed closet door, unseen. "No. You?"

"Tux selection with Nathaniel, Van Der Bass family dinner, performed at Carnegie Hall and drafted my Nobel Prize acceptance speech," he says coolly, making his way to the kitchen for a glass of water.

"You must be exhausted," Blair remarks. "Hitting the hay soon?"

He snorts. "'Hitting the hay'? What does that even mean?"

"I don't know," Blair says dismissively. "Like… horses, maybe."

He chuckles, turns off the kitchen light and gets into bed, clad in boxers only post-shower.

Blair is quiet for a minute, and then says, reluctantly, "So you saw Serena?"

"I did," he says, tired of the topic but trying not to show it.

"Do you think she's okay?"

He pauses. "I think she's been better," he says honestly. "But… she's not the only one."

She scoffs. "That's an understatement."

"She'll be fine. It's just typical…" _(Dancing-in-Lingerie-in-Public-Doing-Coke-at-Fashion-Shows-Stealing-Narcotics-and-Being-Cyclically-Combative-and-then-Remorseful)_ "…Overreactive Serena. You know the cycle."

"I do," Blair says flatly. "That's my concern."

He inhales slowly, noiselessly, through his nose, resisting the urge to ask her why, exactly, she won't talk to Serena, then.

They all know that's the only thing Serena's after.

Then she says, "I love her. But…"

He blinks.

Apparently he doesn't need to ask.

"I just can't right now," she sighs, an exhausted sigh that makes it very clear she's not going to elaborate.

"I understand," he says, trying to sound like he really does, even though he really, really doesn't; trying to sound like he doesn't want to ask why she was crying yesterday before he arrived, and whether something happened in her therapy session, or whether it was Serena calling, or what set off her nightmare- even though he really, really does want to ask.

They fall quiet, Chuck gazing idly out his window at the blinking pinprick lights of Midtown, and he can't know that Blair is thinking past Serena: back to Dr. Genove sitting at her vanity, back to the words that echoed relentlessly in the silence after she left; a silence that overwhelmed Blair, drowning out her attempts to redirect her thoughts, until it was time to pull herself together before Chuck arrived.

 _It's important to humanize yourself._

 _You've done nothing wrong._

The soothing words that needled her, mocking her with their reassuring intent, their promise of comfort, if only she complied.

 _You've hurt no one; harmed no one._

The bitter irony that the doctor could not possibly know how wrong she was.

There's a noise that sounds like Blair's breath catches in her throat, or like she starts a syllable but strangles it.

He waits.

"Chuck?"

He almost teases that if she'll "please hold," he'll "get him." But the vulnerability in her voice after an unusual amount of small talk tonight sobers him.

"Blair?" he says it slowly, making sure it doesn't come off glib or challenging.

"I'm…"

He hears her exhale sharply, like a sigh but with more force- almost a huff, like she does when she's trying to figure something out.

She tips her head against her pillows, the ones he lifted her off of the night before, by the time she opened her eyes.

She swallows.

 _Spend some time thinking about what parts of the person from before were beyond your understanding._

She squeezes her eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," she whispers-

(falters)

-and rushes it out before she loses her nerve:

"I'm sorry I called you a mistake."

He forgets to breathe for a long second. He actually rears back and stares at the phone in surprise.

"That's-" he says, finding his voice after a moment of stunned silence, "you don't have to-"

"No," she says, one hand covering her eyes, head still leant back onto her pillows. "I'm sorry."

His heart squeezes.

This is his chance.

He opens his mouth before he can think: "I'm- I'm sorry about what I said that night, when- "

"Don't." She pauses. "Please don't. You've- I- that night, I can't."

Okay, this isn't his chance.

He nods. "Okay."

"You weren't-" she says suddenly, urgently, then loses her nerve. "You know I didn't mean that, right?"

He remembers leaning against her hospital bed, black stitches fresh on her face, shivering and flushed as she came back from hypothermia, telling her he didn't mean what he said at Bemelman's after she quipped about the irony that she _had_ , in fact, been ridden hard and put away wet. The flash of blind panic at the thought that she really believed him, that the moment when he dig his fingers into her softest spot was honest, and not a nasty but effective exploitation of years' worth of friendship. To make himself feel better.

And he remembers last night, when she wobbled a little as she raised one knee to climb back into her bed, and her palms found his shoulders, and his hands found her waist, and she didn't shy away.

And he swallows and the truth comes out.

"I do now," he says.

And she says _good,_ and then tactfully changes the subject to where they went for family dinner, and what did he order, and how she went there twice last fall and thought it fell noticeably short of its Michelin rating.

xii.

 _Friday, February 8_

 _Very late evening_

He falls back to sleep while she's in the shower- he doesn't know what time she went in, but it feels like she's gone for a long time- and doesn't wake when the water turns off, or when she opens her bathroom door, soft light flooding for an instant before she realizes he's asleep and turns it off, or when she lifts her side of the duvet and slides in, grateful for the anonymity because she's wearing pajama shorts for the first time since it happened- there were no lounge pants left in her bathroom closet, and it's a blessing in disguise because she swears that after alternating cold and hot water, and washing her hair, and scrubbing every inch with bar soap and loofah and washcloth, she can still feel the disgusting sweat that she's peevishly aware has dried on her sheets and pillowcases.

But that doesn't mean she wants anyone to see her leg. Including and especially herself.

She reasons to herself that no one can see her and shuts her eyes tight as Chuck sprawls, toddler-like in a position that will certainly earn him a stiff neck in the morning, not two feet away.

No one can see her. There's nothing to be ashamed of.

Yet her left hand finds her way to the familiar ridges of those letters, which she's been assured by a plastic surgeon will be easy to remove completely if they don't heal over on their own within six months, which is the more likely scenario.

Just a few minutes later, she loses her nerve and gets up and plucks her robe from its hook on the inside of her bathroom door. She's instantly too warm in the velvet. Stubbornly, even as she feels the prickle of uncomfortable heat at the back of her neck, she wraps the robe around herself and ties the sash at her waist.

She tries again to ease herself back to sleep. But as she drifts, her own fingers are replaced by other fingers- nightmare fingers, and nightmare weight, and a nightmare face too close to hers. And her own straining voice, filling the wet, dangerous cold with pleas even as her hold on consciousness slips away.

She jerks, rather violently, awake.

Beside her, Chuck tenses and his eyes blink open, but not fully.

"Sorry," she mutters, tears at the corners of her eyes.

She gets out of bed again, not knowing where she even intends to go. The vexing irony- it's _her_ bed and she's deferring to someone else- is not lost on her.

Bracing one forearm under him, Chuck raises himself a few inches off the mattress, voice groggy, hair rumpled, and squints at her in the dark. He obviously can't see her well, and soon gives up trying, resting his forehead on the back of his hand as he tries to drag himself fully from the deep sleep he was clearly just in.

"You okay?" he manages, gravel in his throat.

(She's momentarily distracted by memories of him when he's hungover and sounds and behaves a lot like this.)

"Yes," she says reflexively.

He turns his head and squints at her; maybe she reads too much into it, but that squint seems to say, _come on, Waldorf, you're wearing shorts and a velvet robe, but you're sweating, and you've gotten out of bed like three times in the last hour, and you're tired but you won't go to sleep._ Or maybe that's what she's saying to herself.

She sighs. "I can't relax," she admits, at a whisper, and she's not sure he hears her.

Forehead still lolling, he sniffs groggily, which makes her think he's almost just fallen back to sleep. "I'll relax you right to sleep, Waldorf," he murmurs, into the back of his hand.

She blinks.

On a three-second delay, he realizes what he's just said.

 _He says this to her the first time they spend any significant amount of time together in the same bed- her bed, this very bed, actually- which is about a week after the limo. She's tense about a chemistry exam, which includes the unit on molecular quantum mechanics, and she's been pacing and muttering to herself about Hermitian operators for days. He finds this amusing sometimes, but the moment the afterglow wears off tonight she's right back to fretting; he even sees her eye her school bag, which is where her chemistry notebook is._

 _He decides he won't stand for this._

 _He kisses her, and they have sex a second time._

 _And the same thing happens._

 _He blinks in surprise; the encore has never not worked for him. He'll have to improvise._

 _When he teases her about her tension, she says she can't relax until the test is over. He raises an eyebrow and makes a deal with her: if he can get her to relax, he gets to stay a few more hours. They'll set an alarm._

 _She scoffs, but smiles with her eyeroll-and-shrug, and moves over to share his pillow- they're_ all _her pillows, actually, as she prissed at him earlier- and he realizes he has to_ really _improvise, because he didn't think ahead to how he was actually going to relax her._

 _So his fingers brush over her hip, the sensitive spot he knows she has, and up the curve of her waist, and trail down her spine until she's covered in goosebumps, and she shifts closer to him with a shiver, shoulders pricking forward a little, her chest against his and her ankle finding her way between his calves, eyelids fluttering closed._

 _And she claims later that it was because of her extreme fatigue, but it's not ten minutes of this before her lower legs stretch and release the way he will soon come to know very well, which means she's just drifted off._

With agonizing slowness, his eyes open fully and he presses his hand into the mattress and lifts his head; then, faster as panic touches him, braces his other hand and pushes himself onto his knees.

"Blair," he says thickly, the color draining from his face at her silence, "I didn't mean to say that."

She's standing a few feet away, and after a moment of stillness, she crosses her arms.

He lifts both hands from the mattress like he's going to continue his apology in full physical surrender.

She parts her lips.

He freezes, heart thudding.

"I think this is too much even for you, Bass," she says lightly, expression unknowable in the dark.

For a few long moments, his not-fully-conscious, partly-frenzied brain struggles to compute whether she means what he thinks she means.

He thinks he must be wrong.

But then she takes a small step forward, toward the bed. Toward him.

He clears his throat, heart slowing at last, and sits back on his heels.

And takes a chance.

"Want to put money on that?"

She laughs then, just a quick bite of a chuckle; it comes out before either of them knows what's what. His eyes are adjusting to the dark and he can see the planes of her face.

She looks… like herself.

"How about, instead of money," she says in that same light tone- less confident and playful than the Blair he used to know, but with a wit just as sharp- "if you succeed, I get to sleep?"

He moves closer to the edge of the bed. He could reach out and touch her.

"And if I fail?"

Her fingertips find the sash of her robe; she toys with it as she ponders her response.

"Don't fail," she says at last, eyes bright like old times.

He laughs, a real laugh. "Interesting terms." He glances down at her hands, their fidgeting belying her carefree attitude, then back up to continue the banter. To give her time to think.

"And under what circumstances do I get to sleep?"

"You get to sleep when I get to sleep," she says, as if this is the most obvious stipulation in the world.

"Ah- of course," he says smoothly. He brushes his fingertips over hers like he did just a short while ago, and she tenses, but then returns the touch.

He looks into her eyes.

"Are you sure?" he whispers.

She holds his gaze, and nods- and glances down at the sash, hands moving as if to untie it.

He covers her hands with his and she glances up through her lashes, damp hair brushing over both shoulders.

"Who do you think you're dealing with?" he teases gently, slipping easily into their shared pastime of mutual bravado.

She smiles softly- he remembers her right before Carolina Herrera, smiling like that- and lowers her arms, leaving only his hands at the front of her robe.

"I almost forgot," she teases back, sounding like she _did_ almost forget: "You're Chuck Bass."

He smiles too. How many times did she taunt him with that exact phrase in the dark?

"I'm Chuck Bass," he confirms, and watches her eyes carefully as he unties her sash- not for the first time.

When it's untied, she shrugs out of it carefully, sighing when it lands on the floor, and looks up with a smile of relief.

At this smile, he finally relaxes. "Come here," he says, extending one arm, palm-up.

She puts her hand in his and lifts one knee to climb into the bed.

 _Saturday, February 9_

 _Very late evening_

By the time they hang up, they're both yawning.

After a blissful minute of inner quiet, Blair pulls back her duvet and stands tentatively, like a fawn testing out her legs.

She pauses at the doorknob to her closet, but not as long as she did earlier today.

She flips the light switch and glances at the note, waiting on the shelf with its envelope and straight pin.

She takes a deep breath, looking at the black velvet gown that floats, facing her, humanlike.

And she takes off her pajamas.


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: Thank you all for your supportive, wonderful words about last chapter =) It inspires me so much to know you're connecting with the characters as much as I am. XOXO!**

i.

 _Tuesday, February 12_

There are a few abbreviated screams, along with unintelligible syllables in deeper baritones, but mostly, the auditorium is silent. The cheerleaders broke off in the middle of a chant, and even the single swish of a pom-pon could be heard in the resounding quiet.

"Oh, my God," Serena gasps beside him, on a wet gulp like she's trying to swallow down vomit. She reaches for his knee, and squeezes it, hard.

Her other hand comes up and covers her mouth.

The people around them are likewise stunned speechless.

There's a sick thud that would not be audible if there was any type of din in the room, followed by a helpless whistle from referee who is _not_ trained to deal with this sort of thing.

The voices of the people on the court- players, coaches, trainers- start to rise, then, and Serena looks to the sources of the sounds, lips parting frantically, waiting for someone to _do_ something, _stop_ this-

The referee drops the object from his mouth as his mouth drops open. Human instinct kicks in and he starts forward.

There's another thud.

Serena is on her feet, stepping over him before he can even react.

She makes no effort to excuse herself as she shoves past the two people between them and the aisle, and takes off down the wide steps down to the court, her flats slapping the hollow wood and making it vibrate.

Her mouth forms his name the first time, but nothing comes from her throat, and it's not until she sees him raise his arm again that she screams, running without hesitation onto the court, at the top of her voice, bloodcurdling in the silence:

" _Nate_!"

ii.

 _Sunday, February 10_

 _Morning_

Bart and Lily breakfast alone together this morning, in the penthouse instead of one of the restaurants downstairs: a more leisurely affair after last night's family dinner. She comes in apologizing that she's late- draped in loose white cashmere and quilted flats- and he kisses the back of her hand and corrects her that she's _stunning_.

He asks after Serena and Erik, and she inclines her head, eyes shifting over the tablecloth, and sighs a little.

"Erik is his wonderful, thoughtful self," she says. "I couldn't have asked for a more sensitive, mature child. And after his… what happened last year," she stops and licks her lips, "I worried this might set him back, make him withdraw again."

Bart picks up his coffee cup. "But, no?"

"No," she echoes, shaking her head. She props one elbow on the table and rests her chin in her fist. "He's engaged and warm like I've never seen before. Instead of pulling back, it seems he's really learned to turn toward the people who love him. It's…"

She trails off, gazing at nothing for a moment, and then clears her throat.

"It's deeply gratifying, if I'm being honest. He's always been a special person. I'll never stop blaming myself for what he went through, but I'm so happy to see how he's growing."

"That's wonderful," Bart concurs. He shakes his napkin once to open it and spreads it on his lap. "I'm very pleased to hear he's coping well. He's such a fine young man."

Lily smiles to herself, straightening her posture, and follows his lead with her napkin.

Enough of a pause settles between them that Bart passes off his next comment like an afterthought.

"And Serena?"

Lily blinks twice.

"Well." She inhales sharply, searching for words. "Serena is handling all this… somewhat more stoically than I might have guessed- she's spending a lot of time at home, which is something of a comfort- and while she's always been more… emotionally accessible than Erik, it's encouraging to see that she's not turning to some of the… coping mechanisms that she did when she was younger." She looks up at him. "Which isn't to say I don't need to ensure I'm paying close attention, but generally she's rather sloppy at concealment, and aside from perhaps drinking a little more than she has the last few months, nothing else seems amiss."

Bart nods, reaching over to pour her some juice. "And has she talked about…" he seems to not know the actual words for what he's trying to ask. "Her… feelings? Her emotional state? I can only imagine what she must be going through, being as close to Blair as she is."

"I will say, I don't think she's grown to the point where she's able to really speak in-depth on the complexity of her emotions, but she's not hiding it when she struggles."

She pauses.

"And just between the two of us- " she actually leans in; he does, too- "she and Blair aren't spending time together right now. My sense is Blair has shut herself in to focus on healing, so Serena is coping on her own and…" she shrugs. "Waiting for Blair to reach out when she's ready."

The corner of Bart's mouth quirks downward, head inclined close to hers.

"I see."

Lily frowns in commiseration, and reaches for a croissant for Bart and then one for herself. "It's unfortunate, but it may be a blessing in disguise- empowering Serena to stand on her own two feet, instead of leaning on Blair to the extent she's done in the past. And," she glances over, "I actually think she's developing a better bond with Charles as a result, strange though that sounds."

Bart gives a pedestrian smile.

"Well, I'm certainly pleased to hear that," he says, smooth and bland.

Lily nods, lifting the domed lid on a bowl of fluffy scrambled eggs. "How is Charles doing?" she asks after a pause, like she evaluated first whether she should broach it.

"He seems to be doing well. He's been spending a few afternoons each week in my office studying introductory topics to start to learn the business." Now Bart pauses. "Truth be told, it's the first time I've seen him devote himself to a developmental activity of this nature. It's… encouraging."

Lily's smile curves over the rim of her coffee cup. "That's _thrilling_ ," she says warmly. "To see him come along like that. And," turning away to reach for the smoked salmon and tomato platter, "does he seem to be recovering from the recent fallout well? It really does seem to me that he and Serena are getting on well, though they've always spent a good amount of time together. I can't help but wonder if he's a steadying influence on her."

Bart watches her as she says this, but she's looking down- spooning capers onto his plate- and not even remotely gauging his reaction.

She doesn't know.

She doesn't know about any of it, about the cocaine, the public striptease, the scene at the fashion show afterparty last week.

When one of the bouncers fed the incident up to him via the usual chain of command, he wondered immediately if Lily had heard too. After all, there must have been someone in the audience who knew the Van Der Woodsen family. But Betsey Johnson caters to a young crowd, not his fiancee's contemporaries, and then days went by without her mentioning it, and he realizes now, looking at her easy smile and unclouded eyes, that she has no idea.

"He might be," he says after a pause that's just short enough to still be considered thoughtful.

Yes, he might be; the bouncer made a point of stating that the young Bass acted very quickly to get her out of there, and mentioned that they were last seen getting into Charles's limo just down the block.

He's downstairs in Bart's study now, actually, as they speak. They'll have coffee when Bart arrives to the office after breakfast.

So this topic can be tabled for an hour or two.

"I actually," he says, putting down his coffee cup and reaching for Lily's hand, "wanted a private moment with you because there's something important I want to ask you."

She follows suit, and places her left hand in his, teasingly: "You've already asked me something very important," she reminds him and wiggles her fingers, the conspicuous diamond catching the pale morning light, as Bart's eyes crinkle at her.

Her effortless flirtation is the first instance of a woman being able to make his heart flutter in his chest in eighteen years.

"This," he says, still smiling, "is a smaller matter."

iii.

 _Afternoon_

When she rises from buckling the ankle straps of the shoes she brought with her to the tailor, the gown is the perfect length for her long legs and high heels.

When she stands on the platform in front of the tri-fold mirror and says she wants the sleeves contoured to make them tighter, she stretches her arms out to the side, then reaches forward, showing how the fabric rides up.

When she twists in front of the mirror, her fingers trace the waist of the gown and suggests they could tighten it to nip her torso in.

When she debates adding a slit to the skirt, she lolls her head evaluatively while the tailor shows her that because of the bias cut of the fabric, they can only slit it up to the knee, which would be ideal for walking- and she agrees.

When her eyes track the clock, she exclaims that she's lost track of time and has another appointment she has to get to.

When she steps out onto the darkening sidewalk, a wet chill cooling her face, she gets in the cab that stops for her and heads straight to the Lower East Side.

It's a dark day today- the sky is heavy, threatening snow, but the internet has assured her the precipitation will hold- and the street is darkening even though it's just 2:30.

She pulls out her brimmed beanie on the way and tucks her hair inside.

Pulls the brim low over her brows.

When she finds her guy- he says his name is Zeke, which means it probably isn't- she drops the same line she's used at least a dozen times before, leaning against the bar, sideways glance, casual half-smile:

"I'm waiting for a friend."

"Oh, yeah?" He glances around boredly, straw darkening as he takes a sip, and Serena's impressed he's willing to consume anything produced in this hole. It's the kind of place they keep dark so you don't notice the rats.

Maybe not _impressed_ , actually, she reconsiders, taking in the greasiness of his too-long hair.

She casts a look around the room for her _friend._ "Yeah. About my height, blonde hair- name is Damien."

'Zeke' shrugs.

"Haven't seen him." He turns around so he's facing away from the bar, like she is, and leans against it, mirroring her body language. He looks over at her, concealed as she is in a sweater and jeans and a coat, but his eyes linger in a way she doesn't like.

She isn't in the mood to be hassled; she doesn't flinch. Guys of this type like to dangle you for their own amusement.

"Buy you a drink?"

In a flash, she thinks of Dan, Dan who would die if he saw her here, with this guy, would put his hands on either side of her face and kiss her forehead and tell her he loves her and she doesn't have to do this, _can't_ do this- and her stomach turns. She pushes him away.

"I'm good, thanks," she replies, flat, eyes averted. "Just waiting for my friend to meet me."

He chuckles in his throat, mouth closed.

"Cool." He lets silence fall for a moment, the din of the low-ceilinged room buzzing around them, sucking at his straw until it gurgles in empty ice cubes, and then says, "mmm," like something's just occurring to him.

He puts down his glass on the bar.

"I have to use the restroom. Mind watching my drink?"

"Sure," she says without looking over.

When he leaves her alone, the bartender leans over and asks if he can get her anything.

She glances over her shoulder and says, no, thanks; she's just waiting for her friend.

Does he want another? the bartender asks, rattling the empty glass.

She replies that she's not sure with a quick look of apology, and makes for the dark corridor that leads to the bathroom.

She has the envelope in her fist, buried in her pocket. She's stepped behind a coat rack and is glancing back toward the bar to make sure the corridor is empty when he emerges.

He steps way too close.

"You again," he says, casual, as she backs up. Then, lower: "Damien says hi."

She stifles an eyeroll. "Do you have it or not?"

He smiles lazily down at her. "Got somewhere to be?"

"Yes," she says.

"I was hoping you'd join me for a drink."

She averts her eyes. She's not going to play this game. She is, however, going to have words with Damien for sending _this_ creep. Doesn't he have any wholesome mules anymore?

Inconveniently, she again sees Dan, almost willing the vision into reality, over his shoulder.

Her back is very close to the wall. Another step and she'll be cornered.

She pulls the envelope from her pocket and shoves it at him. "Here."

At this, he pauses, surprised. "You sure you're the girl Damien said was coming?"

"Yes," she bites.

Although the girl Damien knew was another Serena entirely.

"I'm just in a hurry. Do you have it or not?"

"Of course, duchess." Bored with her, he withdraws the package from his own pocket and passes it over, taking the envelope she's pressing against his other arm. He tucks it inside his coat. "If it's not all there- "

"It is." She sidesteps him and heads back down the corridor, through the bar and onto the street.

iv.

Her hat is in her bag, hair shaken loose, when the elevator stops on the third floor of The Palace and Chuck hesitates on the threshold at the sight of her.

She grinds her teeth together.

"Sis," Chuck says, cordial, as he steps in.

She presses 18 and 21 and Door Close.

"Bart was asking after you," he murmurs when they're enclosed.

She looks at him sideways. "Why?"

He returns the look, steady and piercing, and she forces herself not to squirm, not to rub the talisman in her pocket. "Just how you're doing."

"Just me?"

"No," Chuck says. "Erik too. But he was more interested in you."

Thoughtful, after a pause: "Probably because I'm such a screwup."

(She has a point; it's no secret that past history weighs heavy with Bart.)

"I'm just saying," he says as they near 18. "Watch yourself."

He steps up to the door, elevator slowing, and looks over his shoulder.

She makes eye contact. Her heart burns a little at the uncomfortable thought that Chuck would probably not like what she's just done any more than Dan would.

She thinks he's going to say something else, but he doesn't.

v.

 _Evening_

Blair calls him that night and tells him without preamble that she's received a few gowns from designers, along with notes asking to dress her for the Met Gala.

He's stunned silent for a moment.

"Which designers?" he asks eventually, trying to gauge whether this is a good development.

"Carolina Herrera, and now Zang Toi."

The latter of which is not one of her favorites- too much sparkle- but at least there was no obvious resemblance in their line to any of the publicized photos of her.

"And," she says, softer, "Marc Jacobs."

"I see," he says carefully, remembering Lily's comment about the French Revolution theme and all that blue.

"It's blue," Blair confirms, like she's reading his mind.

He struggles for a comment, and finally manages, "Do you like them?"

"The Marc Jacobs one is off-the-shoulder, light blue, and slit up to the knee with flounces on the hem. It's very Marie Antoinette meets Upper East Side." Her tone is academic, not excited. "The Zang Toi is black- wide neck, open back with a big cowl, and crystals over one shoulder. A modern spin on Breakfast at Tiffany's."

 _And the Carolina Herrera?_ , he can't bring himself to ask.

Again, like he said it out loud: "The Carolina Herrera is…"

She sighs, and lowers her voice like it's a secret.

"Perfect."

His eyes crinkle, mostly in relief.

"Have you given any more thought…?"

"Not yet," she says, voice small. "I don't know yet."

He's standing at his window, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the phone, curtains drawn back. Midtown looks like a mural tonight.

"Lily would die of joy if you wore a Marc Jacobs," he says, for lack of a better comment.

She chuckles and murmurs "Lily" like she's remembering someone from a past life.

"How is she?"

"She's Lily," he replies with equal fondness. "Bart announced today he's whisking her away for a week for her birthday. Apparently he's had it planned for a while, but he wasn't sure if she could be away from Serena and Erik after…"

He stops short.

 _After what happened to you._

She comes to his rescue. "Where are they going?"

"Antigua. Some villa that can only be reached by boat."

 _Bart made a point of telling him this part, eyes riveted on Chuck's face, because he wanted to make very clear that if there were issues with Serena while they were away, they'd be difficult to reach._

 _Chuck held himself still and said, again, that while Serena was of course shaken by the whole… situation… there was nothing for him to worry about._

 _It looked for a second, then, like Bart was going to say something else, after having asked about Serena's 'feelings' twice- catching Chuck quite off guard, as it were, in the middle of a conversation about the agenda for the upcoming Bass Industries board meeting- and Chuck got chills on the instant, realizing as he did, then, that Bart knew something._

 _He knew something._

 _There was no way he was this interested in Serena's emotional state without provocation._

"That's nice," Blair is saying, pedestrian. "Good that they can get away. When are they leaving?"

 _But Bart didn't say whatever it looked like he was going to say. Instead, he closed his mouth, regarded Chuck for a minute across his desk, and then asked, quite seriously, if he could entrust Chuck with keeping an eye on things while they were away._

 _Of course, sir, Chuck nodded._

"Next Monday, after the gala," Chuck says, "and they'll be back for her birthday dinner."

vi.

 _Monday, February 11_

 _Early morning_

The buzzing of his nightstand jars him into consciousness.

He slams his open fist on the table, unaccountably frantic, emerging into waking from a peaceful sleep after talking to Blair until his eyelids drooped.

He knocks his phone off the nightstand and nearly rolls onto the floor as he gets out of bed to get it.

(Later, he'll wonder what his half-conscious mind thought that phone call was.)

It's Arthur.

He's panting as he answers.

"Hello?"

"Good morning, Mr. Bass. I'm sorry to wake you."

He gulps for breath, rubbing his hand over his face, sinking to the floor, his back against his bed. "What is it?"

"I thought you should see Page Six sooner rather than later this morning."

His shoulders slump.

"Why?" his voice is almost a whine. "What is it this time?"

Arthur pauses, unsure whether he genuinely wants an answer to this.

He sighs. "Nevermind. Is a copy on the way up?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you. I'll see you at our usual time."

vii.

Serena's brow is wrinkled in consternation. "What the _hell_ is this," she whispers, belligerent. "My _God_."

Erik, beside her, has his jaw set. "Milking it for all it's worth," he says, so low it's nearly a growl.

She pushes her fingers into her hair, still damp from her shower a few hours before, because she couldn't sleep and she was sweating in her sheets.

After several hours of tossing and turning.

When they get to school- they don't ride with Chuck this morning- the courtyard is abuzz with incredulous whispers and weary glances.

The students of Constance-St. Jude love a scandal as much as, if not more than, any other group of one-percenters, but this incessant invasion of their privacy and ritualistic sacrifice of their peers to public scrutiny has grown tiresome.

Under normal circumstances, Serena would be focused on avoiding Penelope et al as they tried to engage her in talk of gala outfits and get her feedback on their choices (which she's so far managed, artfully, to avoid); as it is, the ladies-in-waiting are nowhere to be seen.

There are no photographers on their block any longer; the school managed to win an injunction that they must keep themselves to a one-block radius from school property; so the hushed mutter of the student body's collective frustration is all there is on this Monday morning, which is otherwise eerily silent under a heavy gray sky.

Her blue eyes are skittering side to side in search of Nate. She feels hot nerves in her stomach, but she can't explain why; it's another invasion of privacy, another excuse for the public to pry into their personal lives, but it's nothing she hasn't seen before.

The first bell clangs and she realizes- not decides; _realizes_ \- that she's not going to history class. She hasn't done the reading.

(Even though she was up all night.)

She's exhausted and jumpy and on the verge of tears.

(Because she was up all night.)

She reasons that she's doing a service to her teacher and classmates, and goes up a back staircase.

And then up a service staircase. And down a service corridor, and through two sets of utility doors that, if one wasn't curious and somewhat brave, one would never know leads to a final set of stairs, bone-bare wrought iron, no hand rail, that gives way to a platform on the roof of Constance-St. Jude's, where various utility towers and the water tank and the HVAC system and who knows what else can be accessed.

And, pleasantly, which is too high for anyone on school grounds to be able to see up to; and which has a bordering wall high enough to conceal its inhabitants if they stay away from the edge.

She drops her school bag a few feet from the top of the stairs and is wandering toward the water tank in the cool morning air (it's unseasonably warm this morning, and actually feels like it could rain rather than snow), fumbling for the cigarettes she grabbed when she saw Page Six this morning, certain she brought a lighter but annoyed she can't remember which pocket she put it in, when she hears the gristly sound of a shoe turning in loose gravel or stray salt crystals.

She freezes.

Takes a step back.

Another sound, and with irrational fear- who is she even afraid of? A custodian? A water inspector?- she starts to back away, hand clenching the cigarette pack in her pocket.

Then, around the tower of the water tank, steps Nate.

He looks surprised, happy, to see her; but he doesn't perk up.

"Hi," he says.

He tries a smile.

She's sweating again.

"Hi," she smiles back. "I was looking for you downstairs."

"And you tracked me all the way up here?" He grins, but he's clearly preoccupied. "Impressive."

A little of her tension breaks at the sight of Nate's smile.

"I have the nose of a bloodhound," she replies, coming toward him.

He repositions to his spot on the other side of the water tank, where there's a partially-obstructed view of the Park, and she joins him.

She leans over and confides in a whisper: "I'm skipping class."

He pantomimes shock. "No. Serena Van Der Woodsen skipping class? I don't believe it."

"Rough night," she murmurs and settles her head against the tank, a misty wind whipping her hair back.

"Yeah? You okay?" he glances at her.

She shrugs. "Just couldn't sleep."

She waits a minute, and then turns her head to look at him.

"What about you? Are you okay?"

He closes his eyes, a sad smile curving at his mouth.

"Nothing new, right?"

Meaning: _Not the first time I've been plastered all over Page Six, right?_

"This is pretty over-the-top, though," she mutters, her undertone uncharacteristically sharp. After a moment's hesitation, she withdraws the pack of cigarettes and brandishes it by way of offering. "Want one?"

Nate hates cigarettes. And all hard drugs. He doesn't even really like to be blackout drunk; he claims it hinders his athletic performance for days afterward.

Also, it's always been quite obvious, he can't stand the smell.

But it's been a long, hellacious month, one month today- not that he remembers the date, but Serena does- since she called him as the blizzard stretched into a gray day just like this one.

 _Nate, I know you don't want to talk about Blair right now, but please listen- there's something you need to know._

And on this gray morning, they woke to a fresh, full-color spread of photos- a few of Nate by himself, handsome in suits and rolled-up shirtsleeves and ties and polos and seersucker shorts and a backwards white baseball cap- and a lot of Nate next to Blair, his arm around her, his hand reaching for hers, offering her his elbow for her to tuck her hand into, his palm snug against the small of her back, at charity dinners and garden parties and museum benefits, the two of them grinning, or looking in different directions to greet people, and one, in particular- the tabloid's cover shot- from last year's Snowflake Ball, of him kissing her gloved hand extravagantly.

In a moment that Nate knows, every time he looks at it, to have been laced with the fresh guilt of having lost his virginity to Serena a few weeks before, of knowing why she left, of knowing why she wouldn't return Blair's calls.

Of struggling with acid in his stomach to make Blair happy, to make it up to her, without her ever knowing- to pay penance for what he did to her.

The girl who so happily tucked her hand into his, and smiled and murmured _I love you_ with palpable sincerity when he kissed her hand like that- a public act of his love for her.

The guilt of that moment, dragging up countless others just like that as she played Blair the Stoic during those first weeks of Serena's absence, flamed inside him as soon as he saw the cover of Page Six this morning.

The devotion on his face as he gazed at Blair, stunning in royal blue, smiling her soft smile back at him.

Trusting him.

And the cover of this week's humiliation sprawls underneath the photo:

 _CAN HE GET HER TO THE GALA?_

So, to both of their surprise, he looks at Serena's face and then the pack of cigarettes and says, one shoulder twitching up, indifferent: "yeah, why not?"

viii.

Nate's checking his watch for the second time- he thinks he's being more furtive about it than he is- when they hear the dull echo of footfall on the iron steps up to the rooftop.

They both freeze, Nate's arm outstretched to shake his watch down his wrist so he can glance at it, the stream of smoke pouring out on Serena's exhalation slowing down quickly, and look at each other. Serena curses herself inwardly for leaving her bag in plain view at the top of the steps.

She drops her cigarette and grinds it under one heel, silent, then takes a step back and peers around the water tower.

Chuck's standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at her bag, a smirk on his face.

Sensing her gaze on him, he looks up.

"Well, well," he says, and leans down and picks her bag up, bringing it with him to avoid leaving it out in the open.

Nate steps out behind her, throwing Chuck a smile. "Hey, man. Join the party."

"How are we?" Chuck's tone is weary; Serena wouldn't be surprised if he was coming up here to be alone. Chuck found this spot in ninth grade- now she thinks of it, it was autumn, the first months they were even in this building- and has certainly been the one up here the most, owing as much to his boredom with class as to his affinity for rooftops in general. Serena has only come a handful of times, and suspects Nate's been even less. Blair came once, when it was first discovered, and declared herself above such things as skipping class to loiter on an unkempt rooftop.

Nate leans back against the tower, back in his original position, as Chuck joins them, depositing Serena's bag next to her feet when he passes her, taking the open wall space on the far side of Nate.

Serena digs out another cigarette. "Want?" she asks Chuck.

He glances at her- _bringing her own cigarettes to school; noted_ \- and gestures for one. She fumbles with the lighter, which is acting up, and lights it for him, then offers a second to Nate. "Nate?"

"I'm good, thanks," he says, gaze far away.

She settles back against the tower wall, hair probably catching debris from God knows what, and tries to blow her smoke the other direction.

"You saw it, I'm assuming," Nate mutters a minute later, in Chuck's general direction.

"Yes," Chuck says, smoke clouding out his mouth and nostrils on the syllable.

It's not difficult to understand what the public is hoping for. It's even easy to see:

 _Blair's triumphant return, sliding out of a sleek stretch limo, hand perched in Nate's palm;_

 _him steadying her as she steps onto the curb, brushing back her long dark hair;_

 _oblivious to the flash bulbs, caught in each other's eyes, maybe a little shiver of nerves, quickly comforted by a word murmured in her ear, a kiss on the hand;_

 _Nate tall, broad-shouldered and handsome as anything in Prada tails, all bluster and swagger, his stance protective;_

 _Blair's body language trusting, the curve of her waist fitting in his hand, her head angled slightly in his direction as they pose for pictures on the red carpet;_

 _the image of untouchable young love that mends the pieces of their shattered fairy tale, proving that this next generation of Astor and Vanderbilt heirs are redefining American royalty, giving us all something to believe in._

 _And the headline: AMOR VINCIT OMNIA._

Out of nowhere, Nate says, after a swallow that no one sees: "I miss her."

Serena's face crumples a bit before she catches herself.

Head tilted down, Chuck takes a drag, cheeks hollowing, eyes on the floor.

"I just miss her being around, you know?" Nate tries again, low. "I hate this and I hate what happened and everything, of course. But, even without that…" he shakes his head. "She's Blair."

What he means is: _she's part of 'the four of us.'_

And, more abstractly, though he doesn't realize it in these words: _…and we're not doing so great without her._

Serena inhales sharply (and Chuck wonders if she's about to out him for not needing to miss her in the way she and Nate do), and reaches over to pat Nate's arm, looking at his eyes. "We all miss her," she says softly.

Over Nate's shoulder, she watches as Chuck exhales through pursed lips, head still tilted down, smoke pouring from his mouth in a thin stream.

Nate smiles sadly, nodding thanks, though Serena did nothing; there's nothing anyone can do.

"My mom is all over me to ask her to the gala," he says after a moment, his tone laced with distaste. "She's driving me nuts."

"Just as friends, or…?" Serena's brow wrinkles.

Nate shrugs.

"I don't think she cares." He smirks, but it's humorless.

Serena blinks. There's a certain vacant look about Nate today- just today?- that's somehow different than his usual half-there-half-daydreaming.

"How ironic," Chuck drawls then, "that for once, society and tabloid are aligned in their goals."

"Yeah," Nate agrees with a quick bite of laughter, but Chuck's expression doesn't change. He takes another drag.

"Well," Serena says, searching for something to cheer him, "my mom booked you a seat at our table, so you're welcome to spend the evening with us. She said your mom isn't coming, so she made sure there was room for you."

Nate does smile at this, eyes warming. There's the Nate she knows.

"That's really nice. Tell her thanks for me. I'll tell her myself when I see her," he adds. Then he turns to Chuck. "So you have a date, or what?"

"Two," Chuck smirks. Serena rolls her eyes, inhaling deeply, end of her cigarette flaring bright orange, as a particularly sharp wind strikes her and flips her unbuttoned coat open. "Erik and now, apparently, you."

Serena chuckles. "A society heavyweight on each arm. 'Chuck Bass Takes the Met Gala.'"

Nate snorts now, genuine laughter, and Serena feels a relief that she still doesn't fully understand. "I'd better be getting a corsage, then."

"Wrist or lapel?"

"Lapel," Nate says, "all the way."

He glances at his watch again, not bothering to hide it at all this time, and sighs. "I have to go to class."

"Why?" Serena says, halfway between pouting and incredulous. "We're hanging out."

She doesn't say it; none of them do; _for just a second there, we almost forgot about everything._

He sounds genuinely regretful. "I know, but we have a game tomorrow. It's postseason."

After the last few months, sports are one of the only things he hasn't lost. His basketball performance in the playoffs was abysmal, humiliating; he cost St. Jude's the final four, and he knows it.

He's usually the catalyst for victory. Not for defeat.

Nate the Great.

"I have to play well," he says, firm. "And if I'm not in class by 9:30, it counts as an absence and I'll be benched."

"This is exactly why I don't play sports," Chuck says drily, dropping his spent cigarette and patting it out with the toe of his loafer.

Nate smiles, adjusting his scarf and straightening his tie. He pauses, and then, quiet:

"She used to come to my games."

He doesn't say it fondly. It sounds sad. It sounds like regret.

He looks between Chuck and Serena. "You guys staying here?"

"For a bit," Serena says, reaching into her pocket for a third.

"No one's counting on us," Chuck clarifies smirkingly.

ix.

The wind has picked up and Nate's footsteps are barely audible on the stairs on the way down.

Even so, they wait in silence, each weary of the other.

He didn't miss the hollows under her eyes when he first saw her; her slightly-too-skittish gaze is not lost on him.

Bart's searching look comes back to him.

He hazards a sideways glance, and she feels it at once- jumpy- and looks at him, then away.

"Sis," he says, drawing out the latter "s."

She tips her head back, rolling her eyes to the sky. " _Bro_."

He leans his head against the wall, too, watching her. "You look tired."

She doesn't reply; her unlit third cigarette is perched between her fingertips.

"Run out of concealer?" he presses. "Or late night?"

"Don't." She reaches for her lighter. "If you're gonna be like this, you can go."

He raises an eyebrow. "I can _go_?"

His lips stay formed on _go_ long after the word evaporates.

"This is _my_ spot," he reminds her, not caring that it's a childish thing to say. He just wants to provoke her; it's perverse, but he wants to be proved right.

Not because he wants to be right, but because he can no longer conceive of a reality where he's wrong.

She's holding up her cupped hand up shield her cigarette from the wind, and flicking at her lighter- he looks at it idly as he watches her, and notices that it's actually one of his, a Dunhill that he hasn't seen in a while- but every spark dies. She frowns and takes the cigarette out of her mouth, shooting him an impatient look.

"You don't own it," she retorts lightly, "and I've had sex up here, so I have as much history as you do."

He suppresses his real response to that, which is that he's had sex there, too-

 _his coat wrapped around her, the plush lining cushioning her back against the concrete wall, hiking her stockinged legs around his waist while she complained that his hands were cold-_

 _and walked away with his cashmere trousers ruined._

Instead, he says, "God, tell me it wasn't with Humphrey."

Serena smiles a small smile. "Dan," she says, like it's the first time she's thought of her boyfriend in years, in a way that strangely pangs at Chuck. "No. Not Dan."

And the pang comes again, because Serena doesn't even joke that, well, now that he's given her the idea, maybe they'll change that…

She puts her cigarette, the tip uncolored because she's not wearing any lipstick to rub off on it, back in her mouth, and flicks faster on the lighter.

Like that's going to fix it.

He sighs.

"It's out of fluid," he tells her.

"How do you know?" she says around the cigarette, persistent on the trigger.

He moves toward her, crossing the space where Nate was standing between them.

"Well, it's my lighter, for one thing," he says, and produces from his inner pocket a book of matches. Victrola matches- black glossy case, dark gold raised V.

Luxury matches.

He tears one off and strikes it, flame flaring high for a second before settling, and shields it likewise with his hand.

She gives him a long look, then leans one hand on the brick next to them and bends forward, fingers in a V against her lips to hold the cigarette steady, to meet the flame.

When it's lit, she straightens and takes a deep, satisfied drag.

She takes her hand off the concrete wall, Dunhill clutched awkwardly with one finger, and hands it over. Nods at the matches.

"You always carry those?"

He hasn't taken his eyes off her.

"You answer mine first," he says quietly.

She swallows, impatient. "I was up late, yes."

"Why?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Yes," he says. "I gathered that."

She looks down at her cigarette, the glowing orange, the browning of the paper.

"I had a latte late and they didn't give me decaf."

He snorts. "Please. Can you at least try? That's insulting."

She looks at him.

She looks fucking awful, he decides. Maybe she can pass it off as exhaustion to other people, but not with him, and would not be able to with Blair. They've seen it on her too many times.

"It was just once," she says.

"Twice, actually." She lowers her gaze at this. He licks his lips. "I told you, Bart was asking."

"Because he's worried about his reputation," she bites. "Not because he cares. Leave him out of this."

They're still standing close, and he steps closer still, pocketing the hand that holds the Dunhill and the matches.

A pace between them, he leans his shoulder on the wall.

"I care," he tells her.

She turns her head away.

"I do," he says. "And not because of anyone's reputation. Including yours."

She blinks, brows scrunching a little, and he can't tell if she's touched or angry.

Then she sniffs, with finality, and says, "I'm not going to again."

She looks at him, and he's genuinely not sure whether she believes what she's saying.

"It feels familiar," she whispers. "And I wasn't… _good_ -" she has trouble finding this word, and pauses after she says it- "when I was like that."

No, she certainly was not. He wasn't good then, either.

Is she, really, _good_ now?

(Is he?)

His scarf flutters in a disconcertingly warm breeze.

She's looking at him.

He clears his throat and asks for a cigarette.

x.

After school, after practice, after dinner, after his shower, Nate pulls on sweats and a long-sleeved waffle weave and heads down to the kitchen to have tea with his mother. She asked him before he went up to his room, where he'd hoped to hide out for the rest of the night without being subjected to more nagging- _talking_ , he reminds himself- about Blair, if he'd have tea with her before starting his homework, before she goes to bed.

And he's her only son, her only child. The man of the house.

All she has left.

So of course he smiled at her and said yes.

And her eyes brightened and he felt guilty for being irritated with her. She's his mother. She's been through hell, _public_ hell, and she's entitled to need a little extra attention.

Even if she is acting a lot like the eccentric Upper East Side recluses she's made fun of his whole life.

He pads into the kitchen, barefoot, silent, glowing from the shower, and sees her at the dining room table, tea tray laid out.

"Hi," he says, leaning over to kiss her cheek, bracing his hands on the back of her chair. As he does so, he sees that she's flipping through today's copy of Page Six.

He sighs inwardly at what he knows is coming.

She smiles over at him as he slides into the chair opposite.

They've already covered how his day was, and how practice was, and whether he was excited for tomorrow's game.

He reaches for the teapot.

"It's still steeping," she says, holding out a hand to stop him. "Fresh mint."

His favorite.

He smiles his most charming smile, hoping she'll take the hint and want to preserve his happiness.

"Darling," she says slowly, "I've been thinking about this all day- well, for a few weeks, really- as you know…"

No such luck.

She braces her hands on the table- on Page Six, as it were. "The gala coming up, it's the first major social event of any kind since everything with your father, and of course, with Blair."

His shoulders tighten. He forces himself to relax.

"Mom…"

"Now, please, just hear me out."

Her voice is so small, so lilting, so very much his mother's, that he is powerless to argue with her.

He loves her. She's his mother.

He nods, forcing his jaws not to clench.

"I understand you and Blair didn't work out. I do. And while I wish that were not the case- you know my opinions on Blair and what a flawless wife she'll turn out to be…"

(What she'll never understand is that Nate doesn't disagree, not one bit.)

"Your relationships are completely your decision and you have my full support in them. That being said, I can't understand the harm, I really can't, in just _asking_ Blair to let you escort her to the gala, if, _if_ , she'd like to go. I understand that's a big _if._ "

He glances at the teapot again.

"Blair and I have barely spoken. We're not on bad terms, but- I mean, after what's happened to her, and… we tried, we really did," he finishes lamely. "I care about her- "

His mother's face lights up.

"Of course you do," she insists, reaching for the teapot. "And caring about her, as a friend, even, what could be more natural than to support her in this way?"

She flips his teacup on its saucer and pours.

It smells incredible.

He licks his lips. "I'm not saying- I mean, if she wanted me to take her, as friends, of course, I would be more than happy to do that."

She keeps her eyes on the pale green of the tea as she finishes with his cup and moves the spout to hers. "And who's to say she doesn't?"

Nate blinks. "I mean…"

"Darling, you haven't talked to her about going together, so how do you know she isn't just hoping that you'll step up and offer to take her, as friends?" She settles the teapot back onto its doily and brings her saucer in front of her place setting, then folds her hands onto her lap under the table. "If she does want to go, of course she won't want to go alone. And who else could possibly be better to take her than you?"

He touches his teacup. It's too hot.

"I see what you mean," he says unwillingly, even though he does see. If Blair wanted to go to the gala, hypothetically, though she could have any number of dates under normal circumstances, the level of attention she's been getting in the media would make this a crucial decision for her. There's an obvious alternative, but, Nate has thought to himself whenever his mother has led their conversation this way, after everything, this is not the time, not the moment for that sort of debut. (What sort of debut that would be, he's not even sure.)

"So? That settles it," his mother confirms, and he wonders if he missed something – several minutes of conversation, perhaps, where he agreed to do what she's asked?

He looks up at her.

She pauses, rim of the cup near her lips, and he knows she's about to burn herself because it's too hot.

"You'll pay her a visit and see if she wants to go with you."

She takes a small sip and flinches.

"Not," she adds, waving one hand as she places the saucer back on the table, "with any pressure, of course. Just to see, firstly if she'd like to go, and if so, if she'd like you to take her."

He looks away from her hopeful face, forehead perpetually twisted in anxiety these last few months, and down into his own teacup. She's lost weight since his father went to prison; having been blacklisted, with sinister quietness and a politeness that stunned and enraged him, from the societies and boards she's been on since he was a little boy, she's taken to wandering the house for most of the day, curtains drawn tight- at first to avoid the prying lenses of the paparazzi, and then because she really had nowhere to go, no one to talk see. Her datebook, open, always, in the study that she shared with his father for twenty years, has been blank since Christmas.

He wishes he could be angrier at her.

The way she wrings her hands when she thinks he's not looking, though- head dipping, the posture of a woman completely lost, completely alone- always stops him.

He picks up his teacup and burns his tongue too.

He puts on his kindest smile, and says he'll ask her, as a friend, if she'd like him to escort her- but, he insists, that's all.

His mother's smile reaches her eyes.

He remembers when she used to look like that every day.

xi.

Dan doesn't even look surprised when she cancels their dinner plans at the last minute. She's been telling him she's focused on preparing for the gala- shopping, fittings, coordinating with her mother and listening to the last-minute details of the planning committee- including an issue with the company supplying all the candles they're going to need, where the vendor assumed the inventory requested in the purchase order was an error, an extra "0" on the end, and they only meant to order one-tenth as many candles- the candle delivery, thusly, precipitated a frantic Sunday night conference call, with Lily pounding three espressos and pressing the fingertips of both hands into her temples at once, insisting that black votives would surely be the death of her.

Dan smiled at that story, and asked incredulously how many candles they could really need? Couldn't someone just go to Michael's?

(Bless his heart.)

He can see how tired she is; it's obvious. And only partly because she's been making a show of yawning all day.

He even commented, concerned, as she laid her head on his shoulder this morning that she didn't look like herself.

"I'm so sorry," she says when she asks if they can reschedule. "Are you free tomorrow?"

"Sure," he says. "For you, always."

She pauses for a moment, and then asks him if he'd like to go to the St. Jude's basketball game.

He blinks. "Basketball?"

She shrugs. "Before dinner. Like a pre-date activity. Game, dinner, movie?"

He agrees, but tilts his head, teeth testing his lower lip, waiting for her to explain.

"I was talking to Nate earlier," she explains, leaning in, voice low. "Obviously he's not having a great time given the whole…"

"Horrible invasion of his privacy and manipulation of his personal history for entertainment purposes?" Dan deadpans, expression steady. "Sure, I get that."

"Yeah," she smiles sadly. "He mentioned about his game tomorrow and said something about how…"

She breaks off and swallows.

Dan waits.

"Blair" (and Serena actually seems to have trouble saying her name) "used to go to his games. And he just looked so…"

She sighs, long, her breath warm in the misty courtyard.

"Sad. I don't know. It seemed like he just missed the support. And you know what his family's gone through the last few months. I thought it would be nice…"

She looks into his dark eyes, his understanding, empathetic, considerate eyes.

She can trust him with Nate's vulnerability.

She knows that.

"…if he had someone there to root him on and cheer for him."

He nods slowly.

"I understand," he says. "Of course we can go to the game."

xii.

But she gets home that night, having left Dan to his books in the library with the casual comment that she accidentally left her books at home (to make him think she hasn't completely disregarded her studies), and there's something about her interaction with him this afternoon that burns in her heart. She pictures those dark eyes. The way he says _I understand_ and _of course_ and _I'm here for you_ and most of all, _I love you._

Because he does- he loves her.

And she doesn't deserve it.

And she's known that for a while. But suddenly, inexplicably, that's swelling inside her today, looking into his honest face and knowing she's nothing but an absolute liar. A terrible friend, a girl he'd never love if he saw fully.

Tears slipping from her eyes indifferently, she's dialing his number before she realizes she has her phone in her hand.

He does sound surprised at this change of plans, but he says, of course he'll come over.

She orders dinner service. Her mother is at the museum, no doubt dealing with the votive crisis or something related. Erik is at a debate tournament.

She opens her bathroom drawer and buries the Altoids tin in the back, underneath a plastic sleeve that contains a silk turban for keeping your hair smooth on long flights. Then she shoves pocket packs of Kleenex in front of it and slams it shut.

When she answers the door, in a robe over soft lingerie, the hugs Dan, arms around his waist inside his jacket. He hugs her back, apologizing for how cold he probably is.

She takes him to bed at once, kissing him the entire time, barely opening her eyes. If he's surprised at her urgency, he doesn't question it, and he meets her kiss for kiss, only stopping to tell her he loves her.

Her mouth quivers, just for a moment before she presses it into a shaky smile, when they collapse together after.

Just then, the doorbell rings with their dinner. She slips on her robe and goes to direct the server, Dan's eyes following her appreciatively.

She keeps delaying him leaving; she's tired, she says, from the weekend, and she didn't sleep well last night. She says this last like it's a confession, and Dan says, sounding proud of himself, that he thought that might be the case.

Can he stay? she asks.

With a raised eyebrow, he asks, Overnight?

She nods and says her mother won't mind. He smiles uncertainly and says his father might.

But, he says when she looks crestfallen, he'll stay until she falls asleep. How about that?

She slides close to him and teasingly asks for a bedtime story. Snickering into her hair, he says he's just been writing a paper on Tennyson- would she like to hear his favorite part?

Stop, she chides, giggling; he can't recite that on command.

And so he does:

" _Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,_

" _This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."_

 _In the afternoon, they came unto a land_

 _In which it seemed always afternoon._

 _All 'round the coast the languid air did swoon,_

 _Breathing like one that hath a weary dream._

 _Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;_

 _And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream_

 _Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem._

 _The charmed sunset lingered low a-down_

 _In the red West; thro' mountain clefts the dale_

 _Was seen far inland, and the yellow down_

 _Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale_

 _And meadow, set with slender galin-gale;_

 _A land where all things always seemed the same!_

 _And round about the keel, with faces pale,_

 _Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,_

 _The mild-eyed, melancholy Lotus-Eaters came._

 _Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,_

 _Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave_

 _To each, but who-so did receive of them,_

 _And taste, to him, the gushing of the wave_

 _Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave_

 _On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,_

 _His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;_

 _And deep-asleep he seemed, yet all awake,_

 _And music in his ears his beating heart did make._

 _They sat them down upon the yellow sand,_

 _Between the sun and moon upon the shore;_

 _And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,_

 _Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore_

 _Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,_

 _Weary the wandering fields of barren foam._

 _Then someone said, "We will return no more;"_

 _And all at once they sang, "Our island home_

 _Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."_

He thinks Serena is asleep when he finishes the last stanza, but her eyelashes flutter and she smiles up at him, propped on his elbow, from her pillow.

"That was pretty," she says. "Why is it your favorite?"

Dan smiles back, smoothing a stray hair from her forehead. "Tennyson wrote this whole series- it's much longer than that- out of literally one scene from the Odyssey. Something in that moment, that one glance," he shakes his head, eyes vacant for a moment, and shrugs, "spoke to him. And he, this young writer at the time who hadn't really had any success yet, turned it into his first major project. That one moment in the Odyssey was like his muse." He smiles, gaze still faraway.

Sleepily, she chuckles. "Must've been a great moment."

"It was," Dan says.

"So," Serena murmurs, eyes sliding closed again- Dan's reading voice is extremely soothing- "are the Lotus-Eaters bad, then? Or good?"

He adjusts his cheek against his fist and looks down at her. "That's the great debate. The Lotus-Eaters make these mariners feel new again, they make them feel safe, and introduce them to this dream world, where it's always a sunny afternoon."

"But, it's through drugs," Serena points out with another chuckle, and opens her eyes, channeling all her remaining energy to give him a pointed look. "I mean, come on, Lotus-flowers?"

He laughs, too, indulgent. "Yes. But maybe the Lotus just allows the mariners to open themselves to see the world for all its possibilities. The Lotus-Eaters are seen by the mariners as the inhabitants of paradise."

"Are they, though?" She runs her fingers through his hair even as her eyes drift shut. "The Lotus world can't be real- they said it's always a sunny afternoon, and everything is completely perfect," she points out, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. She shifts onto her side, so they face each other on the pillow, and opens her eyes halfway with effort. "It sounds like a really great trip to me. The Lotus must be pretty top-grade stuff." She winks, sleepy.

Dan snickers again, but shorter this time.

"Reality is nothing but perception," he says softly, eyes tracing the lines of her face.

"True," she agrees with a sigh. "But maybe the Lotus-Eaters are just lonely, and they just want the mariners to stay there."

Her eyes drift shut.

She shrugs.

"Or maybe I'm just too sentimental."

"No," Dan says after a moment, "they might be lonely."

She's asleep a few minutes later, murmuring thanks to him for being with her, and telling him she's looking forward to tomorrow's date.

He holds her for a long time, waiting to make sure she's really sound asleep. He gets out of her bed stiffly and turns off the light. He closes the door behind him.

He goes out of the suite, up the hall, and down the elevator. All the way home, every step and jolt of the subway, he's silent. Maybe, he thinks, she's right, and the Lotus-Eaters are lonely. And maybe the mariners don't understand them at all.


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: Team, I am SO sorry to have been so remiss in uploading. In my defense, I was preparing for and executing a move from New York to Paris, which has been a big (wonderful!) adjustment.**

 **I'm endlessly grateful for the time you all give me in reading, reviewing, PMing, liking and following. We've picked up several new readers recently and I want to say welcome and thank you to everyone !**

 **Onward ! Happy holidays to all. =)**

 **\- XOXO**

i.

 _Tuesday, February 12_

The ride home from school finds him scrunched low on the rear bench of the limo, bottle of Perrier perched in the cupholder to his right- he lifts it to take a sip between underlinings, left hand pausing, pen poised, his eyes never leaving the page. His propped-up knees form the tilted desk for his studying.

He's reviewing the minutes of the last eight quarterly meetings of the Bass Industries Board of Directors which arrived, along with a secret flood of warmth in his chest, in a package bearing a note from Ellen James, this morning.

 _Managed to dig these up. Thought they might be useful._

 _Best,_

 _EJ_

Whether she ran this by his father or not, he's unsure- on the one hand, he imagines Ellen does little without Bart's approval; on the other, Bart's been making vague references to the benefits of coming into the business "blind," to being "a sponge" and other veiled allusions to Bart's own ingenuity when he was Chuck's age, and may want to see how quickly his son takes to the material without the benefit of a foundation beforehand.

Whatever. He'll take all the help he can get.

He flips the latest sheet he's finished facedown, on top of its predecessors, next to him on the leather seat.

He's been tearing through these sheets between classes, working through the sections in chronological order, the way Ellen packaged them; he's nearly finished with the first two sets of minutes, meaning he's still eighteen months in the past. He wants to finish the next two before his appointment at the tailor, in two hours; Nate's appointment, to which he'll probably arrive late and damp from his post-game shower, is directly after. That will leave a year's worth to finish tonight.

He takes a sip of Perrier as the limo rounds a bend, and slides further down in the seat, adjusting the papers higher on his knee.

ii.

Blair's eyes track humorlessly over the image for what must be the dozenth time. She wants to believe she doesn't care anymore, that it's such stale water under a bridge so far behind her that she can't even remember it, but she finds herself searching the details of the photo of Nate kissing her hand at the Snowflake Ball last year. She's not even sure what she's searching for. Nate was aloof in those weeks after Serena left, certainly, for reasons that became clear just a few months ago; she remembers, now, with a wry twist in her stomach, that she knew in the moment that he was forcing the romance of that kiss, that smile; remembers, with a pang of shame, how readily, needily, she responded. _I love you_ , she murmured. It took so little for her to overwrite the obvious in his case. So little for her to be weak for him.

 _Not just for him_ , she thinks, gaze sliding, emotionless, into oblivion.

So little for her to be weak. Period.

It's one of the questions she would ask that past person- Blair the Unflinching. The girl she was before. The condition that she doesn't have to voice the questions out loud, the parts of that girl that she didn't, still doesn't, understand, to Dr. Genove, has had a surprisingly potent effect on the reflective process her therapist asked her to work on during their last session.

She told Chuck that she didn't mean it. When she called him a mistake.

It's the most honest thing she's said in… weeks. Months?

In a low part of her stomach, probably deep in what could only be described as her gut- but she hates that word, so she'll call it her soul- she burned when she said it, even when she tried to just work up the _momentum_ to say it. Her hands felt cold, and her chin trembled, and not because it was weak to apologize or to admit she was wrong, and not because it was difficult to relive that day- being, as it turned out, the very last day of that past girl's life.

She burned and shivered and perspired because she understands that part of Blair the Unflinching. She remembers that part well- could conjure a strong impersonation of it, now, if needed- the bile that came to her, the rush of hot pride, in a moment when she could feel her power over someone, when she knew she could hurt.

 _This will help you_ , the doctor had said to her last Friday, _to see yourself in a more clear and human light._

And it has.

Standing in the courtyard that day, cool-eyed and unblinking, it was easy to lie to Chuck, easy to deliberately hurt him. (So she could shake him loose and turn, readily, needily, back to Nate the moment he reached for her.)

She sighs inwardly.

But it was a lie, and confessing to the lie, putting her hand over it and pulling it back from the table, made her hot and cold and tremble all over. Because Chuck doesn't look at her like he feels sorry for her; he looks at her like _Chuck_ \- like he's Chuck Bass and she's Blair Waldorf and in spite of everything, they can still complain that the lobster bisque at Le Bernardin is insufficiently seasoned, and he can still look hard at her when he knows she's lying; he can still take the blows she lands and snipe back at her, without telling her how _good_ she is; can talk to her like she isn't about to fall apart at the seams if he doesn't do everything softly.

And telling him it was a lie, that she didn't mean it, feels right. It feels strong. It feels like she's not that girl anymore, outwardly Unflinching, inwardly Trembling, so desperate and weak that she, the Blair of Now, cannot bring herself to look too closely, in case the good doctor's promise- that she'll see herself more clearly- should arrive in sharp focus.

Confessing a lie, even one that hurt, that was designed to hurt, that was weak and petty, and apologizing for that lie, is strong. It shows growth past the hollow, brittle Blair the Unflinching.

Saying that lie out loud is enough, she decides, scrunching further down in bed and sliding Page Six into safe concealment under her duvet when she hears footsteps on the stairs.

That'll be Dorota with the tea.

It's nearly time for therapy.

iii.

Since it's postseason, neither team bothers with elaborate opening sequences, player introductions or the like; St. Jude's, the home-court team, is in white, with Dalton in midnight blue. Even the cheerleaders are lackluster: some of them are still wearing their warm-up pants under their pleated skirts, and a handful of ponytails are unadorned by ribbon.

The bleachers on both sides are sparsely populated, though naturally St. Jude's has more attendees. The Dalton side is a smattering of adults with Blackberries and/or cameras- parents- and student-aged girls- most likely girlfriends of the players. Serena smiles, a small smile, eyes dropping, to herself, remembering Nate's comment that Blair used to come. She leans over to Dan, hand finding his way under his folded coat to touch his knee, and thanks him for coming with her: "I know it's an odd request for a date."

"Worse things have happened to better people," Dan quips back, low, smiling and leaning forward to kiss her.

She smiles back against his mouth, and they part just as the referees and starters (not Nate, she notes, but without better knowledge of his position on the team is unsure whether this is significant) convene in the middle of the court for jump-ball.

"It's the least I can do," she says, watching as the ref, palming the basketball in one hand, brings his whistle to his lips with the other and trills on it, bringing the whole of the room to attention.

He bounces it twice; both players, white and blue, nod in agreement that the ball is viable. He holds it up above his head, whistle dangling down his torso, white and blue shifting their weight in anticipation, bodies coiled tight as springs, and tosses it lightly in the air.

The game goes well, with Nate not part of the starting lineup but subbed in within the first sixty seconds of play, low-fiving the player he swaps for as their paths cross.

No eye contact.

Serena has seen Nate play before, many times. She, Blair and Chuck have gone to dozens of games over the years, and she's accompanied Blair to games without Chuck as well, particularly when her mother was… well. Pursuing other interests.

She's watching him, alert for bits of technique she can praise later, keeping an eye out for his trademark Nate the Athlete smile: Nate isn't boastful; he doesn't brag or grin about his achievements; there's a soft-sloped half-smile that he makes when he's satisfied his athletic expectations for himself, and that's what she's looking for.

If she weren't watching him so carefully, she might not notice that today, Nate isn't smiling at all. He's playing well, if not with the effortless agility she's used to seeing in his performance then with an extra shot of ferocity. He seems less focused and is a half-second behind his teammates on several occasions, which surprises her. And he moves with a hard-bitten jerkiness and heavier-than-normal footwork; he's out of breath quicker, probably because he's not pacing himself; and he stands around on the sidelines, on his breaks from the game, glancing continuously at the half of the court closest to him, even when play is at the opposite end.

"How's he doing?" Dan asks at one point, trying to feign interest for her. Dan doesn't know the first thing about basketball.

"I've seen him in better form," she replies, quiet and honest.

What she doesn't realize, can't realize from her vantage point, is that Nate's inability to concentrate isn't the way he came into the game; it's not the court he's glancing at, nor is it the preoccupation of forlorn emotion that's distracting him.

He notices it after his first two or three rounds in play: one of the adults- parents, presumably- on the Dalton side of the court has a camera on a strap around his neck that seems to be raised to eye level only when Nate is playing.

At closer inspection- eyes lingering on the guy for a few seconds here or there, one of which causes Nate to miss a pass, after which his coach swaps him back to the bench (fair enough)- the guy is too young to be the parent of a player, and, unless college recruiting is trending in a more artistic direction these days, it's unlikely that he's a scout. Perhaps he could pass for a camera-enthusiast brother or cousin, except that he's also too sloppily dressed and nervous-looking: as Nate's suspicion grows and he turns to look at the guy more regularly, the camera is quickly redirected or dropped, with its owner averting his gaze.

Nate goes up for a foul shot, the St. Jude's cheerleaders chorusing encouragement as he dribbles, palms the ball in both hands, winds up…

 _Up! Up! Over the rim!_

 _Come on, Nate, put it in!_

 _Sink it, Nate, sink it!_

(This particular chant, while not of Voltaire-caliber profundity, is amazingly motivating for him: a rush of adrenaline, 'my moment to shine' and all that, especially as it ends with all cheerleaders' hands in the air, a row of burgundy-and-white poms held in superstitious salute until you make the shot, the court so quiet you could hear a solitary cough.)

…and breaks off, feeling himself prickle, imagining a lens trained on him, like that day uptown with Chuck.

He pauses, dribbles again- a gesture not unusual in foul shots, but his lack of focus burns on his cheeks.

The cheerleaders hold their salute.

(He doesn't see, but Serena, next to Dan in the top row, is watching him, intent.)

His foul shot bounces off the backboard. His shoulders slump momentarily, before he remembers his unease and draws himself upright- the less he gives that's photo-worthy, the better- glancing over his shoulder, like he's just checking to make sure no one's behind him, as play resumes.

The next time he swaps out, he makes a display of getting Gatorade, drinking it in long sips, riveting his eyes at a safe angle away from the guy across the court, and then cuts his eyes over quickly.

Directly into the lens that's pointed at him.

He fights the urge to crush the cup in his hand.

The guy- he's wearing a bright blue windbreaker, too cheap-looking to realistically be from the family of a Dalton student, Nate sees- lowers the camera, pretends to fiddle with it, trains it on the players left on the court and snaps a few frames.

Nate tries the trick again after the halftime break, wandering with another cup of Gatorade (lemon, which he hates) to the end of the bleachers on his side of the court, and this time catches the guy watching him, attention turned blatantly in the opposite direction of play, though his camera is not raised.

Too quickly, in a burst of irritation, he crushes the cup in his fist and tosses it into the trash.

The guy's too slow to get the shot.

Nate gives him a hard, mocking look, just as his coach beckons to him- _Archibald-_ and he swaps back into play.

iv.

Despite her inward decisiveness to the contrary, halfway through her session she's forcing her fingers to stay relaxed, forcing her hands not to wring, because the doctor's habit of letting silence stretch, pensive, between them- like she knows something more than she's saying, like she can read Blair's thoughts, like every time they make eye contact she can also see the film reel in Blair's head (drastically off course: someone has surely bastardized her story), grainy and inconsistent in its pace- first jerking forward, then jumping back, skimming, frame by agonizingly slow frame, over moments that she can't- won't-

"Blair."

She blinks.

"Yes."

Dr. Genove fixes her with a blank, penetrating look- not a smile, not a stare- that, for all Blair knows, she may have been employing for the last few minutes while Blair looked elsewhere.

She thinks they're about to slide again into quiet, wonders if she can say she has a headache, something, anything to end this session early. She just doesn't feel well. She didn't sleep well last night. That's why she feels this way. And then this woman asks these quiet little questions about why she thinks things or why she feels things, and then she just keeps _staring_ at her like-

"You were going to share some of your insights about why you may be feeling the way we talked about during our last visit," the doctor says, not unkindly, but not gently either. "Whatever you're comfortable talking about."

She lets the pause before answering drag on as long as she plausibly can, and then waits another five seconds.

"I don't really have any insights," she says, quietly.

The doctor's pause is comfortable. "None at all?"

Blair clenches her teeth together, then releases. "I have to think about it more."

Same pause: about two seconds.

"That's quite all right." The doctor, Blair notices, is matching her tone quite well. Irrational annoyance spills through her on the instant: a shiny distraction.

She pounces.

"Is it?" she replies, clipped. "Is it _quite_ _all_ _right_?"

The doctor doesn't flinch.

It pisses her off.

"You're the _doctor_ ," she presses on, her tone nastily bitter, lip curling just enough to be a sneer. "Shouldn't _you_ be the one providing insights? How much are my parents paying you per hour to sit here and ask me pointless questions?"

The doctor blinks, quickly, twice- she looks like she's thinking about what to say; her expression is not challenging, is not concerned, is not anything.

But the silence stretches, again, too long, and something very like fear squirms through Blair.

On the pretext of adjusting her posture, she presses her fists into the mattress on either sides of her hips, digging her fingernails into her palms.

The movie reel is gliding along, a silent Golden Age picture, from the archives of her mind, brought out against her will. That isn't her story. It's not the story of Blair the Unflinching.

 _(It is, though. That weak, desperate girl under the surface.)_

 _(The one whose existence ended, she's now determined to conclude, that night.)_

No, Blair the Unflinching's behavior has been apologized for; she's admitted she was wrong and needlessly hurtful, and that she didn't mean it. It was right to do that. It was strong. It proves she's not that girl anymore; that girl is over and done with, and she's the Blair of Now, so what difference does this movie make?

None.

Still, it plays on and on and on- _freezing and wet on her back, through her coat-_

She shivers on the spot, a chill running down her spine.

Desperate tears struggle to her ducts. She digs her nails in harder and focuses on the sting.

"This is useless," she tells Dr. Genove, who is, infuriatingly, still looking at her quietly. "You're getting paid to sit there and say nothing? Is that what therapy is? Isn't this supposed to be about you helping me to move on from what happened? Not just…" she waves a hand uselessly, palm-away from the doctor in case she should see the pink crescents of fingernail damage, but disconcertingly the doctor's eyes don't stray from her face.

She has to restrain herself from squirming. She can still feel the cold on her back, though logically she knows she's safe, warm and dry, down pillows and cashmere all that's behind her.

She jars herself upright as if to elude the imaginary sensation, crossing her legs.

"Not just," she continues, "sitting there staring at me and asking me these questions like I'm some kind of…"

 _The hot, heavy reality seeping into her, pulling forth every last bit of energy from her sinking limbs, mind racing as quickly as it could, time passing with agonizing slowness, feeling, with strange detachment, the warmth of blood on the side of her face, and scrabbling, desperate, for anything, anything-_

"Some kind of…" she repeats, uselessly, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, turning the film reel black.

 _Alighting on something in the deep recesses of her consciousness, synapses firing wildly and without judgment, without evaluation, without anything beyond self-preservation, grabbing for it, dragging breath raggedly into her lungs-_

She blows her breath out sharply.

"It's unproductive. Isn't your job to help me? How is this _helping_ me?"

She stares, hard, at Dr. Genove.

After several seconds of silence, the doctor opens her mouth and says, entirely without preamble- no quick lick of the lips, no inhalation:

"What are you thinking about, right this second, Blair?"

Her jaw twitches, but she rallies quickly. "I'm thinking about your increasingly apparent level of incompetence, _doctor_ ," she shoots back, dripping poison.

Still no flinch from the doctor. The notebook, closed again this session, is on the woman's lap, but no pen, even, tucked into its spiral. Blair wonders if her therapist is working as hard to sit still as she herself is.

As if she can read her thoughts, again, Dr. Genove crosses her legs the other way, the movement light and fluid. "What else?" she asks, just above a murmur.

She blinks, weakening against her will. "There's no room for anything else," she tries, but the memory of the cold at her back is too tactile to bear and she shivers, and then looks down and pulls up her covers, busily.

The doctor watches as she straightens the blanket over her lap, tugs it up to hug her torso and folds it down neatly. "Are you cold?" she asks after observing a minute of Blair's fussing. "I can ask Dorota to bring another blanket."

"No," she replies, picking at the edge of the sheet where it folds over the duvet, smoothing it inch by inch, studying the hemline: the tiny, even stitches.

Silence falls.

"I have a headache," Blair says at length. "I don't feel well."

She raises her eyes and finds the doctor blinking back.

"Are you requesting we end today's visit early?" The doctor's crossed foot doesn't bob idly; crazily, Blair wishes Dr. Genove would do something more to irritate her; something to provoke her.

The woman doesn't even rise to her own goading, a fact that fills her with unease.

She needs someplace to put the acid burning in her. Something to distract her from the reel in her head.

"I… I don't want to talk about anything stressful. It'll make my headache worse." She attempts to be impassive, averting her eyes, disinterested: Blair the Bored. "So." She rolls her eyes thoughtfully ceilingward. "I'm not sure we have much to discuss."

"If you'd prefer the time to yourself, to rest or reflect, that's fine." Her tone is so amiable that Blair shuts her eyes against it.

No good: the reel starts up again, sucking freezing air into her lungs to push the words out-

Dr. Genove saves her, unknowingly, "What would be best for you, Blair?"

 _What would be best for you?_

She covers her eyes with one hand, but it's too late. Her face crumples. Tears don't come at once, but worse: shame. A whimper.

She all but writhes in humiliation- she's acting like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, hot with anger one moment, dissolving into hysterics the next; it's _embarrassing_ \- for Dr. Genove to ask her what's wrong, to ask again if she'd like to be left alone, if her headache has gotten worse.

But the doctor just waits.

v.

Nate gets fouled again, though he's starting to suspect the refs are treating him with kid gloves- _poor kid, he's under so much pressure, what with that a crook of a father and batshit crazy mother, and now his girlfriend getting r-_ he bites back that thought, unclenching his jaws with effort as the ref holds up two fingers (he gets two foul shots, which is ridiculous, and he forces down more irritation at the notion that he, Nate Archibald, needs to be _babied_ ) and takes his place at the foul line.

 _Up! Up! Over the rim!_

He tests his weight, one foot, the other, and blows out a long, cool breath that hits his own chest as he looks down and dribbles, slow, steady.

 _Come on, Nate! Put it in!_

He looks up at the hoop- his old friend. Chuck has eye-rolled on more than one occasion that an Archibald 'never met a hoop he didn't like.'

 _Sink it, Nate! Sink it!_

He dribbles once more, winds up, and shoots.

The ball's arc is perfect, careless; it swishes through, nothing but net.

One corner of his mouth turns upward as the cheerleaders do their peculiar little celebration, which involves stomping while smacking their poms against their neighbors', then together, then straight out, kicking one sneakered foot forward as well and bowing their heads. They do this when you've made your first of two fouls. It's a series of thuds and swishes, a rhythm of no more than three seconds that he's heard hundreds of times before, so that listening for it is both a reward and a Pavlovian reaction.

The ref palms the ball, bounces it amiably back toward him.

The cheerleaders wind up for their encore: _Sink it, Nate! Sink it!_

He dribbles faster this time, heart light and shoulders relaxed, and winds up-

And when he raises his head, a flash of bright blue at the edge of his vision makes him glance sideways, and he fumbles with the ball, nearly drops it, tension racing through him like someone's plunged a ten-gauge needle between his shoulder blades.

His teammates, and the Dalton guys, look at him, perplexed. He can feel his cheeks reddening. He makes a half-hearted attempt at dribbling again in the awkward quiet that hangs now, his coach's eyes on him, riveted crowd and frozen cheerleaders at the sideline- and he's trying to fight down the shame of embarrassing himself, and his teammates, and his coach, _again_ -

When he hears a click.

He knows it's a camera shutter, tries to convince himself on the instant that he imagined it, but, a second or two later, another, from the direction of the windbreaker, and then two more, on top of each other.

He closes his eyes, heart pounding, trying to bring his focus back to the ball, but it's too late.

He drops the ball, unceremonious, like it's a piece of trash.

Turns, faces the windbreaker.

Lifts both arms in a careless shrug. "Okay." He pulls his mouth into a grin, cheeks still flushed with embarrassment. "Here I am. Want me to pose for you?"

Though Nate hasn't moved toward him, the guy takes a step back, toward the bottom row of bleachers- he got out of his seat, still safely on the sidelines and not touching the court, to get a good angle for _Star Athlete Archibald Missing Foul Shots- Close to a Nervous Breakdown?!_ , perhaps- but keeps the camera poised.

Click.

"Come on," Nate says, louder, dimly aware of the other players turning to watch him, "what's the money shot?"

"Dude," the Dalton player closest to him murmurs, but Nate barely hears him and acts as if he doesn't hear him at all.

He starts across the court, and at the foul line he's already halfway. The windbreaker is out of luck because there's no way to exit the court where Nate couldn't cut him off.

"Archibald!" It's his coach, who is hilariously- or it would be hilarious in a less confused moment- hovering at the sideline on the opposite side, far behind Nate's back, because if he steps onto the court it's a penalty for St. Jude's. "Get back here!"

The ref trills his whistle quickly in agreement, as if to say, _'yeah, what he said!'_

Nate, still grinning, arms still held out as if pantomiming an emphatic shrug, advances on the windbreaker. "You like smiles better, or serious?"

"Nate," one of his own teammates says, into the otherwise-quiet, moving to follow, but drifting to a stop after a step or two. Nate has laid out more than one of his own teammates 'by accident' in practice in the last few weeks.

The windbreaker, not realizing- who would?- what's about to happen, doesn't make a run for it. He simply lowers his camera and continues backing away, in the direction of the exit this time, as Nate steps up to him, likely thinking he's going to run him out of the building.

The irony: Nate looks beatific, gorgeous, rosy spots on his cheeks and hair shaded dark at his temples from sweat.

Completely photogenic.

Lightning fast (Archibald reflexes), he grabs the windbreaker with both hands, the motion startlingly and comfortingly familiar, though he's the only person who could possibly know that.

Possibly he says something, but if so, it's quick and low and no one hears.

A shriek comes up from one of the cheerleaders- maybe more than one. It echoes in the silence.

Nate shoves the windbreaker backward, hard, with both hands. The guy hits the floor and gasps, the wind knocked out of him. Atmospherically, he hears the hasty tweet-tweet-tweet of the ref's whistle, and he knows it's directed at him: like he's fouling another player in the game, like he gives a fuck about the game anymore.

He punches the guy, hard, across the jaw.

There's a flurry of movement in his periphery, teammates, Dalton guys moving as one, shouting his name, their voices blurry like they're underwater, Nate's jaws clenched so tightly he swears he can't hear or see anything beyond the windbreaker- there's a faint chirping in his ear, persistent, that he recognizes as more whistling, and the sharp knife of his coach's voice; he lands another blow before he feels hands on him, and he shoves them off, roughly.

He doesn't hear her coming, doesn't hear her at all- maybe he mistakes her shouting his name for a cheerleader?- and doesn't see her until she's in front of him, half-underneath him.

It takes a half-second for her features to organize themselves into her face; truthfully, he very nearly strikes her.

vi.

They only have a few minutes left in the session by the time Blair forms any type of coherent thought. They barely touch on it. Dr. Genove says she's happy to stay longer, if Blair wishes, but Blair shakes her head minutely, listless blonde falling over one shoulder, and says it's fine.

They'll discuss it Friday.

She struggles it out, forcing it into the air- the irony not lost on her that this confession, unlike the one she made, that night, the one in the reel, is one that she has to work up to vocalizing.

"I screamed," she says, weakly, looking at an indistinct point in the air above her bed, "for my friends."

Her eyes are already swollen from the bout of face-in-hands, rib-jabbing sobs she's spent the last ten minutes on. She thought she was done, and ready to speak, but to her halfhearted disappointment, tears prick again at her confession.

She pushes on before she loses her nerve, at a whisper the doctor may or may not hear: "I called their names."

She shuts her eyes, letting the warm, salty shame trickle down her cheeks.

She doesn't wait for the doctor to reply, now, as it's clear the doctor is better at that game than she is. She shakes her head, lip curling again, sneering at herself now.

"Isn't that stupid?" she levels at Dr. Genove at last, aware that the seconds are counting down and she'll be alone soon, alone again with the reel, black and white and silent- and suddenly she doesn't want the doctor to go after all; she doesn't want to be alone with it, but she doesn't have a choice about that and so instead she wants to confess, wants to get this off her chest while she can, and maybe it will help.

It's not a lie, after all. Not in the least.

She wants the doctor to tell her that it's time to let those memories go, that those moments, _cold, wet pricking at her back, seeping through her coat_ , don't count.

Don't count.

Dr. Genove half-obliges.

"No, it's not stupid," she says, her voice calm and intelligent and somewhere between friendship-warm and receptionist-chilled. "In our lowest moments, it's natural to wish for those closest to us to come to our aid- to save us. And Blair," she adds, and waits for her patient to make eye contact, "that doesn't make you weak. Wanting someone there to help you to safety, wishing someone you trusted could have stopped it, saved you, is not weak. Wishing for help, asking for it-" the doctor pauses, blinks, chooses her words carefully: "- even though, under the circumstances, things didn't go that way, is not something to feel embarrassed about. It's not something to feel ashamed of."

Blair realizes she hasn't breathed since the doctor started talking, and she inhales, and feels the twist of cold in her lungs again.

She swallows.

"It feels like shame," she says, gaze dropping.

"We want comfort from those we love," Dr. Genove says, in the firmest tone she's used all day. "We seek their presence to help us when we're in need, as we want to help them when they're in need. There's no shame in being in need, Blair. It's completely valid. Even to have- then, even now- fantasies about someone close to you having intervened, having stopped what happened." Her eyes search Blair's face. "There's nothing wrong with that. Thinking of a person close to you when you're in danger means that you feel a close bond with them, that you want to rely on them, that you trust them."

Blair nods along, slowly. When the doctor finishes speaking, she continues nodding, eyes burning.

 _(How quickly she found those words.)_

She becomes aware, after a minute, that Dr. Genove is waiting for her to reply.

"Thank you," she says to the doctor. "I think that's enough for today."

It's two minutes past the hour.

vii.

All at once she appears in his vision, like a film reel cut to black and inserted her, special-effects style, into his scene: Serena, brow twisted in misery, holding up her palms as if to say, _I come in peace._

"Nate," she says with urgency.

He looks down at her, confused; she's almost lying on the floor, hair on the dried-sweat-covered hardwood.

"Nate," she says again, putting her hands on his shoulders. She's half-blocking the windbreaker, putting herself between them; behind her, he sees someone helping up the blue- with some red now, and a terrible thrill rushes through him- and when he looks back into her eyes it's like switching between two worlds.

"Stop," she says, low, "please."

They hold each other's gazes for a few seconds, the other voices still echoing in the background, the Dalton and St. Jude's players and the ref- whether from shock or fear- not having quite had the courage to get so close, and Nate's world shifts back into focus, and when Serena, quite quickly, moves one hand from his shoulder to rest on the side of his face, palming his jaw bone, just briefly, the warmth and familiarity of her touch brings the reality of what he's just done, what he's just _enjoyed_ doing, fully to consciousness.

He turns away from her concern, which he does not deserve, and murmurs that he's sorry, to her, in the windbreaker's general direction, at his teammates- as the latter move forward to help him to his feet- and, dazedly, to his coach, who doesn't even look furious, as he should, as Nate waits for him to- but puts a hand on his shoulder, looks him in the eye, and tells him to go wait in the locker room.

viii.

After Dr. Genove has disappeared, counting to one hundred after the elevator chime announces her departure, Blair fumbles under her duvet with one hand- her first reach turning up nothing, which would irritate her if she had energy to spare on it; she searches further to the right, fingertips skimming sheets- and, with the other, opening her bedside drawer.

She finds the felt-tip pen without issue-

Shuts the drawer with a flat, open palm-

And just as her fingers finally brush the glossy texture of Page Six, she hears Dorota on the stairs.

ix.

Opening Miss Blair's door, she finds her sitting, serene as an orchid, up in bed, hands folded on the smoothed duvet. Her eyes are puffy, which is not unusual after the therapist leaves.

"Another?" Miss Blair asks, when she presents the wardrobe box. Then, idly: "Don't these designers have anything better to do? Honestly, it's getting embarrassing."

Dorota nods back down the stairs. This wardrobe box, freestanding though it is, is very light- whatever's inside must be silk or chiffon. "You want me to take away?"

Miss Blair's face tightens, the way it does before she says something cutting.

Then, like someone stuck a pin in her, she deflates a bit.

"Just put it in the closet," she says, quietly. She glances down at her folded hands, then, briefly, to the right. Raises her eyes. "And could I have my tea soon?"

x.

In the confusion after Nate leaves the court, and the windbreaker stumbles out the door without much in the way of concern or solicitude from the crowd (these are Upper East Siders, after all)- cheerleaders milling about agitatedly and the tight-mouthed St. Jude's team exchanging flat looks and minute shakes of the head, spectators drifting onto the court like sheep out to pasture- Serena, lips parted but few words forthcoming, tells Dan without making eye contact that she's sorry, but she needs to go home, and she hopes he understands. She apologizes again, robotically, when he tries to catch at her arm, takes a few steps after her; she pulls her elbow away.

Back at The Palace, she silences the fourth of his calls, not wanting to _Ignore_ and send him to voicemail. He doesn't deserve that; he's done nothing wrong; but she can't talk to him right now, can't hear his voice.

Arms hugging her waist tightly, she paces, paces, in front of her dresser, coat thrown in a heap on her bed.

She's never seen Nate like that, never, not once in her whole life. She's known him since they were five.

That look in his eyes.

The utter, utter helplessness of her situation sends a chill down her spine, and she hugs herself tighter. She squeezes her eyes closed, trying to force away the image of this Nate she's never seen before.

When that doesn't work, she stops in front of her dresser, flattens both palms on it and leans forward, scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror. Maybe her eyes look different, too.

xi.

She gets off the elevator on the 18th floor, strides with a quickness of purpose that's almost desperate, and turns the corner toward 1812.

Only to find Dan waiting for her.

He's parked on the floor to the right of Chuck's door, back against the wall, tie askance, coat draped over his lap. His backpack slumps, mopily, beside him.

He looks up with no visible challenge in his face, but then he doesn't need to; his very presence there is a challenge. An irrational feeling of affront rises in her at seeing him sitting there.

Him. There. At Chuck's door.

It doesn't… fit.

And something deeper, too: this, Blair, Nate, all of this, isn't his. It's _theirs_. It belongs to the four of them.

She knows, of course, that it's public knowledge and not _theirs_ at all- and even that she's shared a lot of what Dan knows with him herself- but something about his presence here, now, so comfortable staking out Chuck's doorway, when she wants Chuck- when she wants to stand murmuring with him, lowball glasses in hand, about Nate, and exchange looks that convey exactly the state they're all in, without needing to state it outright, without needing to _talk_ _about_ _everything_ , slices cleanly into her and breaks the skin.

Dan's said something, and in the confusion of trying to quiet this surge of what she recognizes is a surge of protectiveness, of battening down the hatches against an intruder, she missed it.

She blinks at him.

"What?"

"I said," he says, quietly, eyes dropping to his hands, "I knew you were upset. I thought you might end up here. I was worried."

She prickles at what he may not even have meant. "Worried about me ending up here?" she replies, incredulous. "Why would that worry you?"

He looks up; takes a long, dragging breath through his nose; blows it out inelegantly through his mouth.

"You ending up here didn't worry me, in particular. I just thought I might find you here."

She shifts, the wanted impetus for defensiveness not having materialized, from one foot to the other.

Dan pauses, then jerks one thumb over one shoulder. "He's not home," he says, nonchalantly, and gets to his feet.

"Maybe he just doesn't want to come to the door." She goes to step around him. He moves, and tries, without touching her, to make her face him.

"Serena." It's barely more than a whisper.

His face is absolutely blank; no judgment, no pity.

"What?"

"Why are you here?"

She licks her lips. "We've talked about this before. The four of us-"

"I know. You've been together a long time."

She flares. "If you _know_ , then why are you wasting time asking me?"

He's flat, unimpressed by her sullenness, having now seen this cycle enough times to know that it's a fatuous show to push him away.

"Serena," he says, as she brushes past him and knocks emphatically on 1812. He turns and, without preamble, asks, quietly: "Do you feel guilty that this happened to Blair?"

Maybe she imagines it, but she could swear he emphasizes _Blair_ in that question, as if contrasting Blair with someone else- someone else that this could have, should have, happened to.

Fist still poised, she turns her head and looks at him over her shoulder.

"As opposed to…?"

Her eyes are narrowed. Her voice is low and deadly.

He blinks, his unconfused expression confirming that, yes, that's what he meant.

 _Do you feel guilty that it was Blair who was raped, and not you?_

She lowers her fist and, instead, turns so that she faces away from Chuck's door. She backs up against it, against 1812, against The Four of Them.

Eyes half-hooded, she stares him down. Her arms cross in front of her ribs.

"You mean," she says flatly, "because I used to be such a slut?"

Dan's mouth drops open at that, and he starts to protest, but she beats him to it.

"Because I used to let whoever wanted into my pants, in?" she surges on, her voice low with the rumble of thunder, too close now to get away from. Her mouth twists wryly. "Because, really, it should have been me?"

"No," Dan tries, but it's too late.

"Yes, Dan, I do feel guilty. Yes, I do think it should have been me." An unexpected relief floods her at the simple act of saying it out loud. And an unexpected love catches fire in her heart, because she realizes, 1812 at her back, why- why she can't open herself fully to Dan, why she can't take the risk, why she goes running to Chuck, to Nate- in the absence of Blair- at every turn.

Because, Chuck- all of them, The Four of Them- they love her. They _love_ her for That Serena. Old Serena. Just as they all love Blair, for all her fury and bloodletting and ice; and Nate for all his frustratingly moment-to-moment behavior that belies a melancholic disdain (and maybe anger, based on what she's just seen) for the world they've all grown up in; and Chuck for his long history of dubious morals and cruel timing and questionable decisionmaking in- well, basically everything but Scotch; The Four of Them love her, for all her promiscuity and the deep, paralyzing fear of rejection she uses it to cover up; for all her selfish, inappropriate, short-sighted hurtful choices; for every flaw she has, everything she's done, everything that makes her Bad Serena.

And Dan does not.

Would not.

Cannot.

This realization breaks so spectacularly over her head that she's breathless for a moment. Dan says something else, but she doesn't even care to ask him to repeat it.

She believes him that Chuck isn't home. Chuck may lie and he may deceive, but he wouldn't ignore her when he knew she needed him. That's not what The Four of Them do.

And Dan's genuine, earnest face, so like the face of one who loves, loves truly and thoroughly- which, if she thought about it, she's sure he actually believes he does, which somehow makes this all worse- is more than she can stand to look at right now.

She pushes away from the door and says, quietly, "I'm going home. Goodnight."

xii.

Chuck arrives home from the tailor that night cradling an armload of board meeting minutes, vaguely pressing the pocket with his wallet in it against the badge reader and sighing in relief when it somehow reads his key card through the layers of credit cards and cash and wool and satin, then leans his back on the door to open it.

His phone begins to ring, and he drops the minutes on the island and fishes it out.

Blair.

"Bass Industries, Junior Management Speaking," he drawls, the momentum of actually learning something that matters, the anticipation of what this could mean, where it might lead, evident in the timbre of his voice.

She chuckles. "I called to say good luck. Is there a business way to say that?" she muses after a brief pause. "Like in show business, they say 'break a leg.'"

He smiles, cradling the phone between ear and shoulder, and tugs off his scarf. "I think it's 'buy low, sell high.'"

There's a real laugh on the other end. "So. How goes the preparation? Do you feel ready?"

He glances at the stack of papers, edges sticking out at frenetic angles after the trip to the tailor and walk up from the car. (Carrying a stack of papers in an organized fashion is as foreign to him as carrying a baby would be.)

"I have a bunch more reading to do," he says, and tells her about the package and the note from Ellen.

"Wow," Blair murmurs. "That was great of her."

"Beyond great." He runs a hand through his hair, smiling absently at the papers. "If this goes well, who knows. Bart might invite me to more things, or…" he trails off. The possibilities are endless, and so good he doesn't want to jinx his chances.

The way Bart talks about the business, the way he looks when he's 'on' and in the middle of a negotiation, or bumps into an investor, or strides through the lobby of The Palace, is a clear indicator of purpose, of power, of hard-fought triumph. If his son can succeed in _this_ area… well.

He clears his throat. "Who knows," he says again.

"Do you think you'll need to speak at all?"

"I doubt it." He hopes not. "I think I'm just there to observe." Bart will be keen to gauge his understanding, though, that's for sure.

She beats him to it: "And of course there'll be a quiz afterward."

He snorts. "Probably an oral cross-exam."

"Well," Blair says, just as he's sizing up the stack to see how many more hours of reading he has- his tux fitting ran late, as Nate arrived much earlier than expected and Erik and Lily coincidentally had the appointments directly after theirs, so the four of them got talking, Nate with a tension in his shoulders and a tight smile and no mention of the game, which makes Chuck think St. Jude's probably lost again; "I'll let you get back to reading, but will you tell me how it goes?"

"Definitely. I'll call you after we get out. It might be late; we're starting at five."

He hears her smile as she tells him she'll be up.

"Buy low, sell high," she says, "goodnight."

xiii.

He goes home after his tux fitting, after kissing Lily on the cheek and accepting the same from his mother like the model of Upper East Side sonmanship that he is, and, after showering and placing his basketball shoes in the back left corner of his closet, pulls on a worn Dartmouth sweatshirt before heading downstairs for dinner.

He and his mother exchange pleasant small talk; she's still pondering the photos of him and Blair in Page Six, studying them as if she's going to give him feedback. One corner of his mouth twitches up, then back to neutral.

 _Wait for tomorrow,_ he thinks, without malice, without shame, without even much interest.

He's starving and eats more than his normal amount. His mother notices and smiles in absent approval when he reaches for thirds.

There's mint tea to finish the meal. His mother seems preoccupied- probably with the photos- and pours it early in the meal, so there's not long to wait before it's perfect drinking temperature.

"I talked to your father today," she remarks, placing her cup on its saucer.

Nate tries gamely to keep his expression pleasant. "How is he?" he asks tonelessly.

That empty datebook in the study.

That empty look in her eyes.

His mother shrugs, a tiny gesture. "He's all right, I suppose."

He did this to her. To them. Put them in this position.

Nate finishes his tea and stands. His mother smiles up at him, but it quavers and doesn't reach her eyes. She opens her mouth to say goodnight, but he parts his lips and she waits.

"Mom," he says.

She tries again at a smile, but then sees he has more to say.

He puts his hand on her shoulder and looks at her face.

He clears his throat.

"I'm off the basketball team. Coach and I agreed it's for the best. Next year we can talk about me trying out again."

Her chin trembles, just once, before she presses her lips together. Then she says, in a very small voice- she's _so_ small; has she always been so _small_?- "try out?"

He nods. "Yes. Try out." He swallows, on reflex, not nerves, and then the words come. "And I want you to know that I'm not going to ask Blair to the Gala."

She blinks, more a fluttering of her pale eyelashes than anything, as if he's speaking in a language in which she is not fluent and she's trying to translate aurally, word by word.

He leans down, hand still on her shoulder- baby blue sweater set, pearls at the throat, for no reason at all- and kisses her cheek.

"I love you," he says. "Goodnight."

And he takes his hand off her shoulder and leaves her there, in her place at the head of the empty Archibald table.

xiv.

Serena sleeps hard that night, harder than she has any right to: the sleep of a girl who has found herself, of a girl who can taste freedom. It doesn't matter that Erik and her mother came home from their appointments at the tailor full of pleasant small talk about having run into Nate and Chuck there, and Lily bubbling over dinner about their having had a wonderful chat, and Nate looking so handsome in the suit he was having fitted (Chuck, predictably, refused to unveil his choice before the night), and how they were all so grown up, and when did _that_ happen?-

Or that Erik mentioned, in an unremarkable tone, that he thought Nate seemed a little… and here he fumbled one hand in the air for a second and a half, looking for the right word… _wound_ _up_ -

Or that Lily tilted her head and said, what else would one expect, having come directly from a basketball game, and he probably had to hurry to make the appointment, and fight rush hour traffic-

Or that she remembers the sensation of knowing that Nate, even as he first saw her in his path on the court, was coiling backward like he was winding up for another punch, or that calling herself a slut to Dan's face was the most twisted pleasure she's known in longer than she cares to remember. Like dropping her robe on the runway after Betsey Johnson, magnified to an exponential degree.

She takes a long, hot shower, and, pulse vibrating thick and slow in her skin, puts on a thick sweater and crawls under her duvet and sleeps like she's dead.

She wakes the following morning later than she should, groggy, still dreaming, and brushes her teeth and measures out two lines of cocaine.

Only when she's brushing at the bottoms of her nostrils, checking her reflection for residue, does she pick up her phone and find an email from Bart Bass at the top of her inbox.

 _Serena-_

 _Would you please kindly stop in my office on 3 before leaving this morning? I'll have a car take you to school to avoid tardiness._

 _Thanks,_

 _Bart_


End file.
